


Sketchy on the Details

by neko_fish



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5093798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neko_fish/pseuds/neko_fish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After getting laid off at Ferelden, Hawke finds himself at Kirkwall where the people are great and the policies aren't. Oh, and there's a beautiful, new man in IT who may have the solution to his very specific problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Recruiting Fenris

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to [ liiiiiiing](http://liiiiiiing.tumblr.com/) for alpha reading and also for putting up with my rants while I game!

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

He narrows his eyes, double checks his username, and tries again, carefully typing in his password one letter at a time.

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

Right. The security protocol dictated that they change their passwords again yesterday. For someone who’s used the same password for everything since elementary school, having to come up with a new one every 30 days has been an ordeal to put it lightly—a challenge he’s been failing to meet…every 30 days. Hawke lets out a groan and massages his temples, hoping to jog his memory.

Maybe he used the dog’s name—wait, no, that wouldn’t fit the password criteria. What was it again? In at least eight characters, the password had to contain upper case and lower case letters, number, symbols, and the blood sacrifice of a small, dappled goat while intoning an ancient chant backwards?

Groaning again, Hawke rests his head on his desk and looks over at the framed picture of his family and the dog. It’s already been a year, but he still misses his old work place where he was allowed to bring the dog to work. Honeypads looked so confused on his first day of work that it broke his heart. If only Ferelden Inc. didn’t nearly plummet into bankruptcy back then and laid off everyone except a core group of employees.

They’ve bounced back since then, with the help of a group of specialists called the Grey Wardens, but he never got around to reapplying for his old job. This is mostly because the person who took over his position is his cousin, one of the Grey Wardens sent to save the company, and he has no desire to compete against her for the job. She’s the one who saved the company—the Hero of Ferelden; she deserves the position. She’s also there with her boyfriend and fellow Grey Warden, Alistair, and the last thing he wants to do is get between _that_. What with all the blushing and stammering and puppy-like earnestness and—oh wait, that’s just Alistair.

Besides, it’s not that he’s dissatisfied with Kirkwall Ltd. or anything. He loves it here, in fact. Or, he loves the people. _Most_ of the people. Here. On this floor. The upper management can go suck a lime for all he cares.

The CEO, Marlowe Dumar, has no power over the company. Majority of his time seems to be dedicated to keeping the CMO, Orsino, and the CFO, Meredith Stannard (aka: the actual boss of Kirkwall Ltd. and micromanagement queen extraordinaire), from throwing anyone out the window during their endless arguments. Dumar’s own son had left them for the law firm Par Vollen & Co., but they’re not supposed to talk about it at work anymore.

_H0neypAds <333_

He presses the enter button.

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

Maybe he used his cousin’s dog’s name.

(Hawke really likes dogs.)

Tongue sticking out in concentration, he types out the potential password.

_dA1syDuk3s <333_

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

Maybe it’s Alistair’s dog?

_BarkSPawn <3_

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

“Damn it all,” he mutters with another sigh. He supposes they’re already lucky that the password resets are only monthly. If Meredith had her way, they’d be coming with new passwords weekly along with fingerprint and retina scans. She sees danger behind every corner and desk, but after what happened at Ferelden Inc. where the CFO nearly drove the company into the ground, he can kind of understand it.

Kind of.

Hawke would be more understanding if she’d stop cutting the Marketing Department’s budget. Even HR, her newest target, is starting to feel the squeeze.

Pulling out his post-it notes, he writes, ‘Password reset every 60 days, not 30’ and ‘Bring your pet to work day (every day)’ on two separate pieces and folds them in half. He pushes his chair back and leaves his desk to drop off his daily suggestions into the suggestion box.

On the way, he passes the marketing intern, Merrill. “Mornin’. Making copies already?” he greets easily.

She smiles, unnaturally peppy for someone who doesn’t drink coffee. “Good morning, Hawke! These are for the meeting later,” she replies, hugging a stack of files to her chest. “Forgot your password again? Oh, sorry, should I have asked that in a nicer way?”

“Don’t worry about it. I tried everything I could think of but no luck. This wouldn’t be such a problem if Meredith would just let us write it down,” he grouses.

“But didn’t Meredith make that rule because of you?” Merrill asks, her eyes round and earnest.

If it had been anyone else, the question would’ve come out as an accusation. It’d be an _accurate_ accusation, but he’s more than happy to ignore that bit. “ _Technically_ , it’s because of Bran. You log on to the executive assistant’s account and send everyone a funny picture of a dog _one time_ ,” he mumbles. “It’s not like I _like_ going to IT and getting Jeven to reset my password. That guy’s the worst.”

Merrill blinks. “Jeven? But he—”

She gets cut off when they pass Varric and Isabela from PR. Varric raises a hand in greeting. “Ah, Hawke, I was wondering when you’d give up on your password guessing. Well, would you look at that? Barely ten minutes. Looks like I win,” he says, holding out his hand.

Isabela rolls her eyes and hands him 50 silvers. But then suddenly cheering up, she wraps links arms with him and gives him a kiss on the cheek in greeting. “Off to IT then, Hawke?” she asks, pressing herself close.

After the first few months and several string-free, friendly tumbles with Isabela, Hawke doesn’t react to the feeling of her ample chest against his arm anymore. If anything, it just feels like any other greeting. Her blouse is mostly unbuttoned as usual and her thigh high stockings covers more skin than her skirt. He returns the kiss and holds up the post-its. “HR first then IT,” he tells her as they walk.

“Ah, yes, your daily suggestions,” Isabela says knowingly. “Where would this company be without them?”

“Well, for one thing, we wouldn’t have had to rename ‘Bring your Children to Work Day’ to ‘Bring your _Human_ Children to Work Day’,” a new voice joins them.

Hawke looks up to see Aveline, the HR manager, who also used to work in Ferelden though their paths rarely crossed back then. Now he can’t imagine how he ever managed without her. “Hello, Aveline,” he greets easily. “I still think it’s discrimination against my poor canine child, just so you know.”

Aveline snorts and takes a drink of her coffee. “I’ll take that into consideration. But knowing you, if we ever did have a ‘Bring your Pet to Work Day’, you’d probably bring poor Carver instead.” He doesn’t deny it because it’s the irrefutable truth. Then she looks over at Isabela and frowns. “Completely disregarding the dress code as always, Isabela.”

“And prudish as always—wait,” Isabela gasps theatrically, pointing at the other woman’s legs where the hemline of her dress pants hang barely an inch above her heels, “are those _bare_ _ankles_ you’re showing? Maker, and _wrists_? Oh, my poor, delicate sensibilities! Quick, avert your eyes, boys! She’ll drive you wild with lust with her naked man hands!”

“Shut up, whore,” Aveline snaps, a faint tinge of red on her cheeks.

Isabela throws her head back, pretending to faint against Hawke. “And the cruel names she calls me! Maybe Anders is right and we really should form a union here.”

“I don’t appreciate you making light of unionization,” Anders says as he returns from his own trip to the suggestion box. There’s a messy stack of paper in his hands, all filled with highlighted words and scribbled notes on the side—probably his manifesto. For someone who worked at Ferelden in marketing and was inducted into the Grey Wardens for a brief time before coming over to Kirkwall, he is surprisingly unorganized. “They’re there for the benefit of the employees. Workers’ rights aren’t a joke.”

Tucking his own suggestions into the suggestion box, Hawke looks around to see everyone standing around him in the middle of the HR Department and chuckles, “Well, it looks like everyone’s here. I feel like we should be on our way to the Hanged Man now for a round of Wicked Grace.”

“Now there’s an idea I could get behind,” Varric says agreeably.

Aveline arches a brow. “It’s Monday morning, you two. Come on, it can’t be _that_ bad.”

“You’re only saying that because you get to ogle that guardsman of yours,” Isabela teases, letting go of Hawke’s arm in favour of getting up into the other woman’s personal space. “Can’t blame you. Men in uniforms do have a certain appeal—especially when you’re the one taking it off.”

“Donnic? He’s quite a nice fellow, isn’t he?” Merrill contributes, oblivious to the tension in the air.

Isabela all but leers. “Yes, a nice fellow, indeed.”

“Oh, lay off it,” Aveline barks.

“I’m always up for a good lay off,” Isabela retorts with a wink.

“Hawke, you’re being uncharacteristically subdued,” Anders notes from next to him. He furrows his brows in concern. “Are you feeling ill or did you forget your coffee again?”

Hawke frowns in realization. “Oh, I _did_ forget to buy coffee. I was just trying to figure out what in the earth my password could be.”

“It wasn’t your dog?” Varric asks.

“Or your cousin’s dog?” Anders suggests.

“Your cousin’s boyfriend’s dog?” Aveline says.

“Your childhood dog maybe?” Merrill helpfully adds.

“Maybe it _was_ _Dog <3333_,” he mutters. His naming skills have improved considerably since then. “It still doesn’t ring a bell though.”

With a sympathetic pat on the arm, Varric offers, “Tell you what, why don’t you go to Bodahn’s and grab yourself a _Boom_ , Maker knows you’re the only one who can drink it without getting a seizure, and I’ll get IT to reset your password. I’m on my way there anyway. Gotta look into something for Cullen and Finance.”

“ _Or_ Hawke could go to IT himself,” Isabela immediately chimes in, sidling up to him. “He’s a big boy, he can do things for himself. He’s perfectly good at… _handling_ things.”

Instead of acknowledging and adding to the innuendos, Varric merely shrugs. “The poor guy’s clearly having a hard day. I just thought I’d help him a little before his meeting.”

Wiping an imaginary tear from his eye, Hawke turns to the man and wraps an arm around his shoulder. “Varric, you beautiful, thoughtful butterfly. You are an irreplaceable gem of a friend—and wholly suspect. What are you hiding?”

“Hiding? I offer to do something nice for you and all I get in return is suspicion? My friend, you wound me,” Varric protests unconvincingly.

Despite the easy grin on his lips, he narrows his eyes in thought. “Yes, I’m sure you’re crushed. C’mon, I know that face. That’s your betting face. Did Jeven do something again? I promise I won’t tackle him in the hallway this time. Or, I’ll try not to. I don’t really think I can make any promises when it comes to that one.”

It’s Merrill who breaks the silence. “I thought Jeven was fired and arrested for selling insider info a month ago? Was I wrong? Oh dear, maybe I read the headlines wrong. I should go apologize to him for getting the wrong idea.”

“No, you’re perfectly right, Kitten,” Isabela purrs. “Jeven’s gone for good.”

“Yeah, good riddance,” Anders says. Trying to organize the loose pages of his manifesto into a single stack, he leafs through the pages looking for stray first-aid forms that may have slipped in. “Did you really not hear about it, Hawke? I don’t know how you missed it. Aveline’s the one who caught him. It was all over the news, but I guess you never listen or watch the news. I would’ve paid good money to watch him get arrested.”

The news usually bums him out, and if it’s important enough, he figures he’s bound to hear it from one person or another eventually. He much prefers using his free time at work figuring out which sites are blocked and which aren’t. “Jeven’s gone for good,” he repeats slowly. “If he’s gone, then that must mean there’s _someone_ _new_!”

Merrill helpfully points out, “But he’s not very new anymore, now, is he? He’s been here for a whole month already.”

“I don’t like him,” Anders says, nose wrinkling in distaste. He and the new guy must’ve started off on the wrong foot. Maybe the guy said something anti-union, or anti-cat, or anti-universal-healthcare. They all love their local healer and his caring nature and passion for justice, but his causes are numerous and sometimes controversial. “I’m glad he stays in that dark, little IT room most of the time.”

He doesn’t hear them. His eyes practically gleam. Hawke _loves_ newcomers. Nothing makes his day quite like being extra welcoming to the new guy and making him feel, well, _welcomed_. And if a couple of people coincidentally quit soon after meeting him, then it’s not too big of a loss. Kirkwall is no place for the weak. If he’s enough to scare them off then they’d never stand a chance against _everyone else_.

With a goal in mind, he breaks away from the group and makes a run for the IT room. Behind him, he can hear Isabela and Varric running after him while Aveline shouts, “Stop running in here, you three!” Then more quietly, she says, “Seriously, how does that woman run in those heels?”

“Hawke sure is friendly, isn’t he? All these new employees sure are lucky to have him welcome them like this,” Merrill asks.

“He’d be more endearing if he ignored them and pushed their cups off their desks when he wanted attention,” he hears Anders say faintly.

When he reaches the door to the monitoring/IT room where IT and monitoring happen, and only those with a proper access card are allowed in, he raps on the door urgently and waves at the camera to be let in. Meredith had set up cameras all around the office because she’s _Meredith_ , and he wouldn’t put it past her to actually watch the tapes every week, but she never mentions them so the rest of the employees are more than happy to let the sleeping dragon lie.

Behind him, Varric wheezes, “Hawke, you don’t want to do this.”

“Oh no, you _definitely_ want to do this,” Isabela counters encouragingly.

Hawke doesn’t know what kind of bet they have between them, and he doesn’t care because there’s a soft click from the door. “C’mon, Varric, what could possibly go wrong? It’s just a new guy,” he says, pushing the door open, feeling a gust of air conditioned air blow past him.

“You know I hate it when you say that,” Varric replies.

“Let’s go already,” Isabela urges impatiently, pushing him forward.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this. You know I love new—” The three of them practically tumble into the room and Hawke’s chiding trails off into silence as he comes face to face with a lanky man with beautiful green eyes and tattoos running up his neck and down his hands. Suddenly, he becomes very conscious of his hands, unsure of what to do with them.

Poking her head out from behind him, Isabela asks, “What’s the matter, Hawke? Is there a crate blocking your path again?”

“That was _one time_!” he protests instinctively. Then he glances back at the new guy and tries to salvage a little of his dignity by adding, “And it was a huge crate! _And_ I was drunk!”

Varric doesn’t even bother hiding his chuckles. “Nice save there, buddy. Real smooth like a fine Antivan brandy.”

The tattooed man clears his throat awkwardly, his shocking white hair contrasting his dark skin even more under the dim lighting of the room. Hawke’s eyes are glued to the tattoos on his neck, running down and disappearing into his shirt. He wonders if they go all the way down and then immediately tries to shake the thought out of his head.

“Isabela, Varric, is there a reason you three came barging into the room?” the man asks with a frown, and _sweet Maker_ , his voice is deep and sonorous and Hawke can feel it resonating in his _thighs_. He’s going to be hearing it in his head for the rest of the day and in his dreams, he just knows it.

Collecting himself to the best of his ability, he says, “Several reasons, actually. First things first though, welcome to Kirkwall! I’m Garrett Hawke from Marketing.”

Shaking his hand with a firm grip, the man returns, “Fenris. It seems a little late to be welcoming me here, but I appreciate the gesture.”

Fenris. He repeats the name over and over again in his head and wills his knees to stay strong. “I would’ve come sooner if I had known Jeven had been replaced,” he says, shooting his friends a pointed look because _traitors_. “In fact, I would’ve invited you out to the Hanged Man with us to celebrate his tragic departure if I’d known sooner. Actually, that sounds like a great idea, why don’t you come out with us tonight?”

Arching a brow, Fenris points out, “It’s Monday.”

“It’s never stopped us before! But fine, have it your way. We’ll do something Friday then and you have to come now since we’re trying to accommodate you,” Hawke relents half-heartedly.

Varric lets out an impressed whistle. “Two minutes in and you’ve already got him wrapped around your finger. Nice work, IT.”

Looking a little lost, Fenris says, “He could’ve said no.”

“For handsome man like you? I’d be more than happy to bend over backwards every now and then,” Hawke says with an easy grin, subtly fist bumping Isabela.

Fenris chuckles but quickly cuts himself off by clearing his throat sheepishly. “Yes, well, was there another reason for you being here? I should probably get back to work.” Behind him, multiple monitors light up the back wall, each showing a different section of the office and the monotony of people working. Offhandedly, Hawke can’t help but notice that the cameras in the Marketing Department cut off right before his desk, and he doesn’t know if he’s pleased about that or insulted.

He nods. “I do have less personal reasons for being here—”

“It’s really more like a chronic problem he has,” Varric adds. “You’ll get used to it after the second month.”

Hawke frowns, affronted. “Hey! For someone in PR, you sure aren’t managing my public relations very well. I’ll have you know that I try very hard to keep this issue under control.”

Brow furrowed and looking more than a little wary, Fenris asks, “What issue?”

“An IT issue.”

“So I gathered,” Fenris returns smoothly.

“Our passwords expired and I can’t remember what I changed mine to,” Hawke finally admits. “It’s not as bad a problem as Varric makes it out to be, I promise. It normally only happens once a month, or maybe twice if it’s especially bad.”

Isabella snorts. “I think you almost drove Jeven mad that one time you went back every week?”

He shrugs helplessly. “That was an off month. I think that was a little after Daisydukes gave birth to another litter of pups and apparently my cousin brought them to work with her. All I could think about was puppies running around in Ferelden. If I still worked there or took a day off, I could’ve brought Honeypads to go see his parents and his new siblings!”

Varric wrinkles his nose, cutting him off with an offhanded wave, and Hawke knows exactly what’s coming next. “I love dogs as much as the next person, but I’ll never understand Ferelden. The whole place and all its people smell like dogs! How do you get any work done?”

“I hear there are actually many benefits to having dogs at work,” Fenris says, and Hawke wants nothing more than to kiss him. “But going back to your problem, Hawke.”

It sends a shiver down his spine and he wishes Fenris would say his name again—in all sorts of different settings, contexts, and positions.

Oblivious to his less than pure thoughts, Fenris continues, “I will reset your password, and if you’d like, feel free to email me a hint or a clue that I can give you as a prompt next time.”

Good looking _and_ helpful, he’s not sure how much more he can handle before he swoons. “Fenris, you are most definitely my favourite person here,” Hawke declares, ignoring the affronted noises the other two make.

Rolling his eyes, Varric starts pushing the two back out the door. “If I’d known your love was so easy to come by, I would’ve just offered you a stick of gum instead of bothering to help you find a job here,” he mutters.

“Aww, are you _jealous_ , Varric? Have you finally fallen for my dashing good looks and roguish charms?” Hawke teases, offering no resistance to the manhandling. “Need I remind you of how many times I’ve offered you my love before, only to have my poor, fragile heart broken and trampled on?”

Chuckling, Varric shakes his head. “I still maintain that you’re too high maintenance for me, Hawke. Besides, Bianca wouldn’t take it well.”

He clutches at his heart dramatically and sighs, “Shot down again! And for a phone no less! Please don’t start stroking it.” Then he glances back at the dim room and waves. “See you around, Fenris! I’ll email you about Friday!”

And just before the door closes behind them, Isabela calls out, “Red?”

Only to have Fenris yell back, “No!”

She laughs. “I’ll get it eventually!”

Back on his own feet and walking through the halls back towards his desk, Hawke is convinced that the day couldn’t possibly get any better. But then he quickly changes his mind when he walks past Anders’ desk and overhears him telling Bran, “This isn’t a first aid problem I can treat at work. You’re gonna have to go to a clinic for _that_.”


	2. No Rest for the Wicked

The sun’s barely up and it takes all his concentration and willpower to drag his legs up the steps instead of just stopping half way to take a nap on the cold, hard concrete. Finally at the top, he spots the ‘Open’ sign through half-lidded eyes and pushes the door open. The bell jingles its cheery tune as he stumbles inside. The shopkeeper and his son turn around to greet him with a smile. “My, messere, you’re early today!”

He doesn’t understand how Bodahn can be awake enough to be so perky _and_ coherent so early in the morning. “I had to drop Bethany and Carver off for some school thing. They didn’t want to pay for parking because the amount they charge at the university should be considered a crime. My usual and a cup of Anders’ usual, please,” he orders at the counter, eyelids getting heavier with each passing moment.

Sandal stares at him unblinkingly. It used to unsettle him, but he’s long since learned to take it in stride. “Espresso?” the boy asks quietly.

Hawke blinks slowly before nodding. “Sure, I’ll get a shot of espresso too.”

“Yay! I like espresso,” Sandal cheers, clapping his hands together.

He manages a smile. “I like your espresso too, kid.” Almost immediately, a tiny cup appears in front of him and he downs it while standing at the counter. It goes down smooth and gives him the jump he needs to make it the rest of the way to the office. “I needed that. Best espresso in town, cousin nearly cried when you guys upped and moved over here.”

Bodahn laughs, placing the cup of coffee on the counter. “A Boom if you’d please, my boy,” he tells his son before turning back to Hawke. “Please send your cousin my regards. I do miss her terribly. You two are my best customers and the only ones who order the Boom on a regular basis.”

“Boom!” Sandal shouts excitedly.

“It must be something in our blood,” Hawke murmurs, inhaling the scent of fresh coffee. He watches the espresso drip into his cup. It’s soothing to watch as the caffeine from earlier courses through his system. He’s never made the mistake of trying to keep track of just how much espresso went into the drink. There are some things in the world that he was better off not knowing. What he _does_ know is that Carver once took a sip of his drink and couldn’t sleep for a week.

Paying for the drinks, he continues the rest of his trek into the office where the receptionist greets him with her usual pleasant politeness. It’s impossible to not be nice to her. Even his worst moods are diffused by her soft-spoken voice and hesitant concern.

“Good morning, Orana,” he says, flashing her a tired smile before making his way over to his desk.

Hawke takes a long drink from his Boom and lets out a pleased sigh as he feels it work its magic. He pulls his phone out to send a teasing text to his cousin. She may have Ferelden, but _he_ has Bodahn’s. Already feeling better about the day, he boots up the computer and logs in only to find:

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

Of course.

He quickly tries all the dog names he can think of out of habit before slumping over in defeat.

“You’re here early, Hawke,” a voice says from behind him.

Hawke gives a start and spins around to see Fenris standing there. After the second month, the man had started showing up at his desk on the first day of the month to give him his hint before disappearing off into the IT room to do whatever IT things needed doing. And whether that little skip of his heart was due to the caffeine or Fenris’ sudden appearance, Hawke isn’t conscious enough to ponder it. So instead, he says, “Oh, thank the Maker you’re here. How’d you know I was in?”

“I could smell the caffeine from whatever you’re drinking from the front door,” Fenris tells him, nose wrinkling slightly. In his hand, he’s carrying his own cup of coffee from Bodahn’s. “You ordered two cups?”

Sluggishly, he glances over at the second cup on his desk and shakes his head. “Nah, that’s Anders’. Too much sugar and cream and too little caffeine for my liking. I owe him for staying behind yesterday to go over the latest project budget with Cullen, and by ‘go over’, I mean argue. I’m drinking a Boom,” he says, holding up his drink. “It’s the only drink that comes with warnings.”

“Somehow, that does not surprise me.”

He grins and waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “That’s because if you’ve ever listened to Varric’s tales, you’ll know that I’m no ordinary man.”

Fenris snorts. “No ordinary man, indeed. And one with an extraordinarily short term memory to match. The hint you sent me yesterday was ‘Why do they exist?’”

“Uncle Gamlen?” Hawke asks, blurting the first thing that came to his mind. “Wait, the hint’s plural…necromancers? Angry people? Sexists? Racists? Bigots? Bandits? Warmongers? Furry trousers? Cheeses that taste like despair? Cave spiders—oh my god.” He quickly turns around and types in his password and watches his wallpaper pop up. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“And you’re afraid of cave spiders,” Fenris says.

He huffs indignantly. “Not afraid. Sure, I might get the occasional nightmare where they fall on your face and overwhelm you and tear you apart limb by limb, but I’ll have you know that they’re cause for legitimate concern. Isabela dragged me to go treasure hunting under the guise of a ‘fun hike’ last weekend and it was terrible.”

To be fair, he might’ve jinxed it by complaining loudly about how boring the cave was and ‘This is no fun! Where’s the threat of internal bleeding?’ and then he may or may not have let out a scream a few octaves higher than he thought possible when the cave spiders descended from the ceiling.

Giving a slow nod, Fenris says, “Ah, yes, the treasure hunt. I heard about that.”

Hawke arches a brow. “I sure hope you got the story from Varric and not Isabela.”

“Is there a difference?” the other asks. Ever since Hawke insistently invited him out to the Hanged Man all those months ago, Fenris has become a regular member of their little band of misfits.

“Oh, yes, I’m far more dashing and dignified in Varric’s version,” he replies, purposefully forgetting to mention anything about accuracy.

Chuckling, deep and throaty, Fenris says ruefully, “Then apologies, but I heard it from Isabela. To be fair, after she stopped laughing about how you screamed like a little girl, she did paint you to be a rather dashing figure with minimal arm flailing.”

Hawke stifles a groan. “Of course she did. Our Isabela is kind and thoughtful that way.”

“She was with your brother when I ran into them the other day,” Fenris continues. “I believe they were gift shopping for your intern.”

He dips his head in understanding, recalling the aftermath of that particular day. “Ah, yes, I remember Carver complaining about it when he came home. I thought he’d been mugged by the Carta, his face was so red. She dragged him into Viveka’s Secret, didn’t she? Apparently Viveka used to work at the Blooming Rose? Or was it the Pearl? I forget. I think it was the Blooming Rose and the Pearl was the place where you’re not supposed to ask for surprises. Anyway, Viveka got her inspiration from the…employees at one of those places—or so Isabela told me.”

Fenris snorts, but there’s a faint smile on his lips. “Isabela _would_ know. But now that you’ve managed to log in, I should…go. We’ll talk again soon.”

“Yeah, soon,” he repeats dumbly. Watching the other leave, he practically melts into his chair with a dreamy sigh. “Marry me,” he whispers at the retreating figure, taking a long, slow drink from his cup.

“Only if you’ll buy me coffee in the morning like this for the rest of my life,” Anders voice suddenly says.

Hawke nearly does a spit-take but inhales at the last second and chokes instead. “Maker, you just got Boom up my nose!”

“Does that mean the wedding’s cancelled then?” Grabbing the second cup of coffee off his desk, Anders shrugs. “Shame.”

\--

They all gather in the lunchroom at their usual table during their break while Varric tells them his latest story. “…so then it’s my last chance to break the ice, right? I didn’t want to screw this up so I decided to go with an old classic and I say to the guy, ‘Hey, here’s a riddle for you: what’s a Ferelden’s favourite position?’”

From between Aveline and Isabela, Hawke groans, having been the butt of this particular joke far too often for it to be funny anymore. But he lets his friend finish and settles for stuffing his face with leftovers from Bethany’s casserole last night.

“‘Doggy style.’ And he laughs so hard that he spills his coffee all over his beard. And that’s how I got us that venue for the press conference,” Varric finishes, satisfied with the laughter he gets from around the table. He looks over to see Fenris and Anders approaching with their take-out containers and beckons them over. “Well, look, the Broody Bunch finally decided to join us.”

Dressed in black leggings and a long, baggy sweater for casual Friday, Fenris narrows his eyes in disdain at the comment. From his side of the table, Hawke does his best to telepathically invite him to pull up a chair and sit next to him, but instead, Fenris takes a seat by Varric and says, “Do not call us that or group us together in any way.”

From the opposite end of the table, Anders nods reluctantly. “I hate to agree with him in any way, shape, or form, but what he said.”

Varric snorts, unfazed by the glares directed at him. “Look at you two, thinking alike like the twins already. Pretty soon, you’ll be inseparable like Aveline and Rivaini,” he says.

Merrill nods eagerly, adding, “They really do get along, don’t they?”

From either side of him, the tension finally boils over as Isabela wins yet another round of Wicked Grace between her and Aveline. Gathering her winnings, Isabela smirks. “You know, you’d be a lot better at this if you got laid. I know it’s a sore spot, but you’re so tense all the time that every twitch of your man hands is practically a tell.”

Aveline scowls and lunges. “Oh, I’ll show _you_ a sore spot!”

And caught up in between their fight, Hawke desperately tries to keep them apart while Varric merely nods at them. ”See? Best of friends and completely inseparable.”

“They’re trying to throttle each other,” Fenris points out, opening the container from Formari’s.

“Inseparable,” Varric repeats.

Hawke sends them a glare and grits out, “I’d hate to distract you from your astute observations, but a little help would be particularly helpful about now.”

Varric arches a brow at him before turning to the two fighting. “Hawke, you’re the only person in this place who’d complain about having two lovely ladies in your lap.”

“Fighting,” he adds, leaning back to dodge a blow. Fenris is too busy poking at his food to help while Merrill and Anders have started up a conversation, completely oblivious to his situation. Friends. There are days when he has to remind himself that they’re his friends and he loves them very much. “Let’s not forget the fighting part. If they knock over my lunch, I will be _very_ put out.”

Rolling his eyes and without sympathy, Varric takes a long sip from his mug before saying, “Yes, yes, no one’s forgetting about your terrible plight.” But then he turns to Fenris instead and says, “Hey, Broody, next time, you should give the nug-gets a go. I heard they’re free range.”

“ _Varric_!”

“Maker’s balls, alright, alright! Rivaini, didn’t you have something to show us?” Varric asks, immediately grabbing Isabela’s attention and diffusing the situation. “Don’t tell me it’s to do with that _‘amazing’_ hat shop you found.”

Quickly scooting back into her seat as though nothing happened, Isabela pulls out her bag excitedly and places it on the table. Hawke, despite having been caught up in the fight, can’t help but wince on her behalf as the fine leather touches the table and whatever mysterious stain the cleaners failed to get rid of. “No, as magical as that place is, that’s not what I’m talking about this time. Look at what I found!”

She pulls out a book and they all crowd around to take a closer look. Hawke is the first to comment, “Isabela, is that a copy of the Par Vollen policy manual?”

Par Vollen & Co., where their word’s the law and since law is the only thing they ever speak. Consisting mostly of big, beefy men, all full-fledged members are called Qunari, and he’s had his fair share of run-ins with a number of them on previous occasions.

“Not just a copy,” she corrects him, “the _original_. I found it in the black market.”

“You bought it from a darkspawn!?” he asks.

“Not bought,” she corrects him again before pausing and correcting herself, “wait, yes bought, just without exchanging money or anything of value in return.”

Aveline arches a brow. “You slept with them for it?”

Isabela furrows her brows. “I said—oh, ha ha. Fine, I’ll let you have that one, man chin.”

“You _stole_ the stolen original policy manual,” Anders says, sounding every bit as horrified as Hawke feels. He’s not eager to have another encounter with the Qunari any time soon. “And what exactly were you going to do with it?”

She shrugs, her voice radiating disinterest. “I don’t know, read it? Put it on my shelf to collect dust? I just thought it looked fancy and I kind of wanted it so I took it. What’s the big deal?”

At this point, having ordered, Fenris decides to join them and explains, “It was written by Ashkaari Koslun, the founder of Par Vollen & Co. To them, that manual must be beyond sacred.”

Humming thoughtfully, Isabela puts the book back into her bag and nods. “That explains why it was being sold at such a ridiculous price. Look at you, Fenris, all knowledgeable and stuff. I tend to avoid them whenever I can. We don’t exactly have a good working relationship with them.”

“They’re awfully intimidating, aren’t they?” Merrill says, though Hawke suspects that that’s the limit of her smack talk. “I’m sure they’re perfectly nice if you get to know them though. And they’re all so tall! Do you think they have to build their doors bigger? Or do you think they just duck whenever they enter a room? No wonder they’re so angry all the time.”

“And being in possession of their stolen policy manual probably doesn’t help,” Aveline mutters, narrowing her eyes at the other woman. Hawke subtly shifts, stretching his arms to create more space between the two of them in fear of another lap fight. “Of all times for you to fess up.”

“So what should I do with this thing?” Isabela asks with a thin frown. It’s that same frown she wears when she’s bored of something or decided that something’s more trouble than it’s worth. “Should I sell it to someone? I know a couple people I’d like to be rid of.”

“Hate to break it to you, Rivaini, but if the Qunari still have an eye out for it, it’ll be easy to trace back to you,” Varric tells her. “Besides, the people you sell it to would never play fair, but you probably already know that.”

At this point, Hawke is doing his best to avoid eye contact because he knows where Isabela’s train of thought will eventually end up. And as he expected, she turns to him and asks, “Hawke, they respect you, what do _you_ think I should do with this thing?”

Fenris turns to him with a brow arched in interest. “You gained the respect of the Qunari?”

Hawke shrugs and hopes it comes off as nonchalant as opposed to genuine confusion. “Not sure how it happened, but I guess I managed to do a few things, like, five at most, right. So the Arishok gave me a title which probably means ‘not a complete moron’.”

“What was it again, Hawke? Base elite?” Varric asks.

“Basalit-an?” Fenris says.

He feels a shiver go down his spine at the other’s voice. But before he can comment on Fenris’ talented tongue, Varric says, “Yeah, that’s the one!”

“Hmm, very impressive,” Fenris concedes, taking a drink.

His eyes trail down to the man’s throat as he does so, and suddenly, for the first time, Hawke reconsiders the terribleness of having to speak to the intimidating figure that is the Arishok. Sure, it was still terrible beyond measure, but the title he received impressed Fenris so it was all totally worth it in the end.

Next to him, Isabela rolls her eyes and waves a hand in front of his face, snapping him out of his trance. “C’mon, Hawke. Focus. What if they send the Crows after me?”

Everyone knows that Antiva Ltd. only produces three things: leather goods, alcohol, and the Crows, who are known for their ability to assassinate a person’s career through any means necessary. They’re expensive to hire and have been known to turn against their own for the right amount of coin. Only a few people in Thedas were truly safe from them, and one of them was sitting next to him.

Hawke scoffs. “Please, we both know you’re immune to the Crows.”

She smiles, eyes lighting up, probably thinking of Zevran or whatever other contacts she has in the Crows. “You’re right, I am immune, aren’t I? That still doesn’t solve my problem with this stupid manual though. The sooner I put this mess behind me, the better. I’d much rather have a Crow come after me than a Qunari. Those meetings are _much_ more fun.”

He can’t argue against that because it’s true. Those Crows are definitely _thoroughly_ trained in _everything_ , as he’s had the pleasure of finding out. “Focus, Isabela,” he returns with a grin. “We should probably return this manual to them before you go looking for Crows.”

Isabela thrusts the bag onto his lap. “Great idea, Hawke. You should do it since you’re a base elite among them. Maybe with this, you can get promoted to a second tier elite.”

Hawke shakes his head. “No way. One title is more than enough for me, thanks. Knowing my luck, they’ll probably end up challenging me to a duel. Can’t we just mail it in or something? Bronto Express it? Anonymously?”

“Maybe you can return it and apologize?” Merrill suggests. “Or is that a bad idea?”

“Oh, Kitten, I’d love to, but I have a reputation to think about,” Isabela says.

Aveline frowns. “And the Qunari aren’t allowed to kick her ass before I get a turn.”

Blowing her a kiss, Isabela smirks. “I always knew you wanted a piece of this, big girl.”

“Please, I’d sooner vomit on you,” Aveline snaps.

He immediately throws his hands up. “Please don’t vomit in this direction.”

“What about that guy at Ferelden? Sten?” Varric asks. “I hear he likes baked goods. You could bribe him with cake. Oh wait, they’re funny about taking bribes, aren’t they?”

“What about that girl you helped at that party at Orlais? Remember? With the infiltration? Tallis, was it?” Anders suggests. He rubs his chin thoughtfully and adds, “But she _did_ upload that video of you acting Orlesian so maybe not.”

Hawke sighs and buries his head in his hands. He can’t bear to watch what he knows is happening across the table: Varric showing Fenris the video. He can hear his own voice, loud and overdramatic as he wails at the guard about the state of his outfit, and Fenris chuckling. “It was for the job. I had no choice,” he mutters pleadingly, wishing not for the first time that he had turned it down.

Giving him a sympathetic pat on the back, Isabela tells him, “I thought your acting was superb. Very Orlesian.”

“Doesn’t Saemus work at Var Pollen now?” Merrill asks, taking a bite of her salad. “I’m sure he’d be happy to help us help the Qunari if we ask him nicely.”

They all stop and look at her.

She shrinks under the weight of their stares. “Oh dear, I’m sorry, did I say something wrong again?”

“No, Daisy, that was a great idea,” Varric reassures her. Then he adds under his breath, “That’s why we were surprised.”

“It’s a great idea,” Hawke says, “but how exactly are we supposed to get in touch with him? We’re not even supposed to talk about him at work. Am I supposed to just go up to Dumar and be like, ‘Hi! How’s your son? By the way, I have a priceless Qunari manual for him to give to the Arishok. Please and thank you!’?”

Varric nods and shrugs. “Yeah, exactly like that—but better.”

\--

“Hello, it’s so good to see you again, messere. How’s Saemus been doing?” he asks, shaking the other’s hand. The room is smaller and more Spartan than most CEOs’, but Dumar is a simple man. On the wall, there’s a portrait of his family. On his desk, there are stacks of paper waiting to be looked at. It must be hard to do much decorating with the place when most of his time’s dedicated to keeping some semblance of peace on his floor.

Dumar looks taken aback by the question but smiles. “He’s been well. I had my doubts, but he seems to be fitting in quite well at Par Vollen. He’s also come to respect Kirkwall a great deal more ever since he found out how respected you are even among the Qunari.”

He waves his hand offhandedly. “It’s not that big of a deal. I mean, how hard can it be to get a title from the Qunari? You have to be, what, 9 out of 10 Qunari recommended?”

“Actually, it’s near impossible, from what I’ve heard,” Dumar tells him. “You’re the only person in Kirkwall who’s earned the title. There is perhaps only one other in Ferelden and maybe a few at Thedas University who have been acknowledged by the Arishok. And this is why I asked you to come in here.”

Hawke pauses and smiles hesitantly. “Oh, is that right? And here I thought it was just to drop by for that monthly hello and goodbye thing.”

Dumar arches a brow. “I wasn’t aware that that was a thing. I asked you here because there’s a conference next week—a ‘meeting of minds’ of sorts. I realize you’ve only been here for a month, but I’d like you to go and represent Kirkwall. Feel free to bring a representative from the other departments. From what I gather, Cullen will be going on behalf of Finance. I’m personally asking you to go because the Arishok will be there and my son will also be there.”

“So you want me to impress them with my fancy title?” he hazards a guess. This would provide the perfect opportunity to return the manual to the Qunari without being detected, but the way Dumar’s hesitating is putting him on edge.

“Not exactly. I want you there to make sure we’re treated right,” Dumar pauses, “and also to keep the peace.”

He frowns. This conference just keeps sounding better and better, the sarcastic, nagging feeling in the back of his head tells him. “What do you mean ‘keep the peace’? Are you expecting something to happen there that I should know about?”

Dumar averts his eyes. Never a good sign. “It’s just, Thedas University will be sending a representative from their Chantry Studies faculty as well. And my sources tell me that she has a reputation for being very…passionate in her beliefs.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you should go into marketing? Because I think you’d be great at it,” Hawke jokes. “I don’t see how one crazy sister can—”

“It’s Petrice,” Dumar finally blurts.

His jaw snaps shut at that. “Oh.” Hawke mentally sends an apology to Isabela and glances around, looking for an excuse to leave. “Well. This has been a great talk, messere, but I should get back to work. Wouldn’t want Meredith to think I’m slacking off or anything, you know?”

“There will be free food there,” Dumar quickly adds. “All the restaurants in Thedas will be contributing something.”

Hawke pauses. “Even that place that does the dishes with fine recipes direct from Orzammar?”

“Even that one.”

He furrows his brows for a moment before sighing, “Fine, sign me up.”

Leaving the room, he can hear Bran saying, “See? I told you he can never turn down free food.”

\--

There was no chance at peace and that’s how he ends up in this mess with food flying everywhere, a streak of berry sauce across his nose, and the Arishok chasing him with an entire pie in his hand. Ducking behind another pillar as he runs around in figure eights, frantically dodging the larger man, he finds it all very unfair that the Arishok thought him to be the only ‘worthy opponent’ in the room.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Isabela taking a picture of him and giving him a thumbs up. Having shown up at the very last minute, he’s relieved to see she didn’t change her mind about giving back the stupid manual. Off to the side, Aveline’s aggressively shoving Petrice’s face into a bowl of potato salad while Fenris is pouring red wine down some Tevinter magister’s back with one hand and shoving another’s head into a bowl of nug blood pudding with the other. The smirks on their faces suggest that they’re having the time of their lives and Hawke wishes he could feel that kind of joy.

Fenris looks up, there’s a flash of concern on his face as he says something Hawke fails to hear.

Hawke finds out what Fenris was trying to warn him about soon enough when he steps on something grey and squishy and nearly face plants on the floor. He manages to retain his balance, but in those few precious seconds of lost time, the Arishok catches up to him and tackles him into a wall. Winded and seeing stars, he lets out a groan and struggles for some sort of grip only to find gravy and mashed potatoes on the wall.

The Arishok grins triumphantly and raises the pie.

Without thinking, Hawke grabs a handful of wall-splattered gravy and potatoes and chucks it at the Arishok’s face.

Stunned silence fills the room.

“Truly, you are an opponent worthy of respect, Serah Hawke,” the Arishok concedes, dropping the pie. “This conference is over. We will return.”

All the Qunari drop whatever food’s in their hands and march out of the building in varying degrees of disarray. Following closely behind, Saemus, with a small fruit salad stuck in his hair, takes his leave with a quick nod and a smile in their direction.

Still winded and in a ridiculous amount of pain, Hawke remains on the floor, wondering if the Maker truly hated him or something. “All I wanted was to eat free food,” he mutters mournfully.

Above him, he suddenly sees his friends’ faces, Aveline and Fenris concerned, and Isabela pleased and grinning. “I can see it now,” she tells him, snapping another picture, “‘Champion of Kirkwall heroically brings conference brawl to a peaceful end.'”

“As long as you don’t use this picture of me lying on the ground looking defeated and sad,” he wheezes.

She scoffs and puts her camera away. “Of course not, I have a beautiful picture of you in your fighting stance. It’s great and very champion-like and I can’t wait to show Varric. He’s going to cry himself to sleep for at _least_ a week for missing out on this.”

“On the subject of missing, what took you so long?” he asks, quite pleased with his segue.

Isabela replies with a helpless shrug. “The Blooming Rose. It was an…early reward for a good deed yet to be done. You didn’t really think I’d come to something like this sober, did you?”

“I take it fights like this are a normal occurrence at conferences?” Fenris asks. He’s all mussed up and has food splattered down his person, but he still looks unfairly attractive.

Aveline sighs, wringing fruit punch out of her hair. “Unfortunately. This one was already on the milder side.”

“You two looked like you were enjoying yourselves,” Hawke points out. “Unlike me.”

Fenris shrugs, and with a small smile on his lips, he says, “It was unexpected, but I have no complaints. You take me to strange places, Hawke.”

Hawke grins and winks. “I’ll take you to stranger places yet…once I regain feeling in my torso, that is.”

Isabela makes a face at that, but then she sighs, “I suppose I should thank you for helping me out again, Hawke.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” he says easily, meaning it. “Oh, but Isabela?”

“What is it?”

He reaches out with a devilish smirk and smears a handful of the Arishok’s pie on her face. “No more Qunari manuals, promise?”

“Why you little—” With a laugh, she shoves the rest of the pie in his face. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked the image of Sandal staring at Hawke and asking "Espresso?" quietly in that potentially murderous way of his before reaching back slowly and scratching his butt.


	3. A Story Being Told

“You’re certain?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ve got this. Wait, maybe if I…oh! Oh? Oh. Damn it all.”

“I could just—”

“Just once more! …blast! Maker, why does this keep happening?”

“At least you can tell Varric it wasn’t from lack of trying on your part.”

“That’s the best you got, hmm?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take it. Fine, shoot,” he says with a defeated sigh, slumping over his desk. Outside, the sun is out and doing its best to cook everything its rays touch. Before he realized it, the seasons have changed from spring to summer and the pubs have started opening their balconies for use again; everything’s new and changing—except for his inability to remember his password.

“Your favourite sibling,” Fenris tells him as he next to him.

“Bethany,” he immediately mutters and proceeds to log in with no further issues. A picture of his dog pops up on the screen and it takes him a surprising amount of self-restraint to stop himself from cooing at it.

Fenris arches a brow at his answer. “I didn’t expect you to be so blatant about it, though she’s certainly more agreeable,” he admits. “Does your brother know about this?”

Hawke snorts. “It’s not like I’m his favourite sibling either. I love them both and would die for them, but I definitely _like_ my sister more. Bethany’s _everyone’s_ favourite sibling. Here, watch.” He turns to Anders and asks, “Hey, Anders, who’s your favourite sibling?”

Not looking up from his first first-aid report of the day, Anders grumbles, “Bethany.” He sounds irritated, not that Hawke can blame him. There’s an ice pack in Anders’ lap and a brown stain on his pants that reeks of coffee, which wasn’t in any way _Hawke’s_ fault.

Except the part where it was _completely_ his fault and _his_ Boom all over Anders’ lap.

To be fair, he’s already apologized profusely multiple times and offered both compensation of the caffeinated sort as well as his first child, to which Anders muttered, “A little Hawke? That’s the _last_ thing I need. Knowing my luck and who you are as a person, your child will be exactly like you and wreak havoc on my life and set my house on fire or something.”

In his defence, it was only a small fire and partially Anders’ fault for leaving drafts of his very flammable manifesto lying around.

Turning the other way, Hawke spots Varric passing by and calls out, “Hey, Varric, perfect timing! Who’s your favourite sibling?”

“Bethany, though you’re close second, Hawke,” Varric answers easily.

Fenris frowns, his confusion clear and endearing. “I thought you had a brother.”

Varric laughs at that. “I do, and every now and then I dream about stumbling across Bartrand’s corpse on my way home from the Hanged Man. It always makes me wake up feeling warm and fuzzy inside,” he says, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye, “especially after that thing that happened this weekend.”

Anders snickers from his seat and Fenris turns to Hawke with a questioning look, because whether he likes it or not, Hawke is always involved in ‘things’. “Do I even want to know?”

“It’s a great story, I’ll tell you all about it at lunch,” Varric tells him.

“Why is it that when things happen, you’re either caught up in it or the cause of it?” Fenris asks.

It’s a perfectly valid question, and one he doesn’t have an answer to, so he settles for shrugging helplessly. “I wish I knew, then I’d be able to avoid it and live my life out in peace.”

Rolling his eyes, Varric scoffs. “Live your life out in peace? And do what? Take up gardening? Crocheting? You’d get bored of it in a day.”

Hawke thinks about it for a moment. Varric has a point; not having to do anything other than work _does_ seem awfully dull. “I doubt I’d be any good at crocheting. Fine,” he concedes, “but I’d at least like to pick and choose the trouble I get caught up in though.”

“The surprise is half the fun!” Varric insists, making a grand, sweeping gesture with his hand. “And that’s where all the good stories come from! Face it, Hawke, a peaceful life isn’t your thing. You’d hate it. And think of your _dog_ and all the things he’ll never get to smell or piss on because of your ‘peaceful life’.”

He huffs, unable to argue the point. “Stop being so convincing, Varric, why can’t you just leave my poor fantasy life intact?”

Varric claps him on the back and walks off with an offhanded wave. “You’ll thank me when you’re named the world’s most interesting man one day. See you two at lunch.”

Sighing, Hawke leans back in his seat and stares at the ceiling. “I hate it when he’s right, though I’d be happy if I never have to see Bartrand again.”

“Is Varric’s brother that bad?” Fenris asks.

“Yes. He’s that bad and worse,” he mutters. “What about you? Do you have any siblings? A favourite one perhaps?”

Fenris shrugs and stares at his coffee with that wistful look he sometimes has. “I have a sister, but we’re not close. She works at Tevinter.”

Hawke immediately files this away in his mental codex of all things Fenris related. So far all he knows about the other man is that he used to work at Tevinter Imperium, a marketing firm with a very strong union; he doesn’t like marketers, despite the understanding that they’re not all the same; he laughs at Isabela and Varric’s dirty jokes; and he doesn’t get along well with Anders. “Isn’t that where you used to work?” he asks.

With a nod and half a shrug, Fenris replies, “Yes, unfortunately. I was there as an unpaid intern as so many others still are. It was terrible. No one should ever have to put up with the things they do there, most of which were neither legal nor ethical. I remember my supervisor, Danarius, telling me to turn a blind eye to it if I ever wanted to a job there, and like a fool, I listened. It took a while, but I eventually realized that they were never going to hire me. So I left and they offered to pay me for my silence.”

“I take it you didn’t accept?” he asks.

Fenris lets out a dark chuckle. “Would you have? If they’d just paid me from the start, I might’ve felt differently, but they didn’t. No, I didn’t take their dirty money. I was the one who set up their security, you see, and when I left, there was no one left to keep a proper eye on it when it got…attacked.”

There’s a gleam in his eyes when he says it and Hawke’s suddenly reminded of the massive information leak at Tevinter Varric told him about. “I vaguely remember that. Fraud, exploitation, bribery, scams, black market deals, what _didn’t_ they do?”

“Well, they certainly didn’t update their software,” Fenris deadpans, drawing a surprised bark of laughter from him.

Still grinning, Hawke says, “I supposed that explains why you were having so much fun at the conference.”

Blinking in wide-eyed wonder as if he hadn’t expecting Hawke to notice, Fenris says, “I would’ve thought you were too busy fighting the Arishok to see me.” He’s kind to say ‘fighting’ instead of ‘running away in figure eights’, which would’ve been more accurate. “That woman was Hadriana, my old supervisor’s apprentice. She used to torment me, knowing I couldn’t do anything to fight back. I didn’t know she’d be there, but,” he flexes his hand, reliving the memory, “all that matters is I finally got to smear blood pudding in that bitch’s face.”

He personally feels like ‘drown’ would be a more accurate word to use instead of ‘smear’, but he keeps that to himself. Or, he tries to. And fails. “I thought you were trying to test the breathability of nug blood pudding.”

Luckily, Fenris seems to take it in stride and laughs. “I was tempted to, but that would’ve been unfair to the cook to have such a terrible person ruin their reputation.”

“How thoughtful of you. Good on you though, she had it coming,” he says, raising a hand only to remember his coffee had been squandered on Anders’ lap. “Did you come straight to Kirkwall after Tevinter then?”

“No, after that, I ended up working for a small gaming firm for a while until they went bankrupt and had to let me go. It was…gratifying working with them, in a way I’d never known. Soon after that, I was recruited by Kirkwall.” He looks up and does that half shrug again. “I’ve never told anyone about this; I don’t know why I’m telling you now.”

“I…” Hawke clears his throat sheepishly, his heart pounding just a little faster. “Thank you for telling me this. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here—and paid. That part’s also important.”

Fenris chuffs and shoots him a lopsided smile. “That part’s definitely important, though the company’s quite nice too,” he glances over towards Anders’ general direction, “for the most part. To return to your original question, since my sister and I aren’t on speaking terms, I suppose that makes Bethany my favourite sibling as well.”

Hawke smiles warmly at that. “See? Bethany’s everyone’s favourite sibling.”

He’s pretty sure they’re having a moment when Fenris suddenly turns away and coughs self-consciously and rubs the back of his neck. “I…I should go open up the room. The guards should be changing shifts soon.”

“Don’t they have a card key?” Hawke asks, hoping it didn’t come out as desperate as he felt.

“They do, but apparently Meredith insisted on having another set of locks because my predecessor didn’t want to deal with people forgetting their codes, so he decided to write their access codes on their cards,” Fenris explains, flashing the card dangling off his neck for Hawke to see. “I have to go. I’ll see you at lunch, Hawke.”

Shoulders sagging as the other leaves, he sighs, “Don’t leave, stay forever.”

“Stay forever? That seems rather dire. Oh dear, is there a project that’s due soon? I don’t think Meredith would ever agree to pay for the overtime for _forever_ ,” Merrill says from behind him, eyes wide and a stack of papers clutched tightly against her chest.

Next to him Anders’s shoulders are shaking from his stifled snickering.

\--

“No shit, there I was,” Varric starts in his usual way, gathering all the people in the lunchroom around him; even some of the people in Finance are there like Emeric, Cullen, and Keran, the intern.

Hawke still remembers when Merrill decided to tell her grandmother a story using Varric’s style—he couldn’t look Marethari in the eye quite some time after. Shaking the thought out of his head, he throws the pasta Carver made him into the microwave. He’s been looking forward to Carver’s cooking for days now. It’s no secret that in their household, Carver’s the best cook out of the three of them with his incessant need keep his siblings healthy and well fed.

With his meal heated, he takes a seat between Aveline and Anders at their usual table with his lunch and leans back in his chair, curious to hear whatever heroic tale Varric has conjured about him this time.

“This happened last weekend, when my brother was unfortunately in town and he called me up with this investment plan of sorts he wanted me in on.”

He takes a bite of the pasta and nods subtly. So far so good.

Varric continues, “Now, it was only supposed to be a short meeting, but if you know my brother like I do, then you’d know not to trust him when he tells you anything. He could invite you over for dinner and you’d wake up the next day in a bathtub full of ice and a missing kidney; that’s the kind of guy he is. So I call Hawke and Blondie here up and we head to the beach with the twins and the dog to meet Bartrand.”

Hawke chuffs quietly, remembering how excited the twins had been at the prospect of going to the beach. They brought along their matching sunglasses and hats, shovel and pail for sand castles, and their doughnut floaties for chilling on the water.

“When we get there, Bartrand takes us to the mouth of a cave and tells us that he had a source tell him that there was an untouched ancient burial in there with goods that were worth a fortune. At this point, we already knew it was a terrible idea, because, you know, curses and whatnot, but we decided to humour him. We go into the cave and after fighting through cave spiders and dragonlings, what do you know, there really is a grave site.”

There were no dragonlings, only small lizards, though the cave spiders were unfortunately real.

“We look around and I find this nice, shiny little trinket,” Varric holds his hand up, his fingers pinched together as though holding up a necklace, “and I show Bartrand. Then wouldn’t you know it, the greedy son of a bitch—sorry, mother—snatches it out of my hand and runs off with it. We tried to chase him down but I guess he hired someone to wait by the entrance because once he got out of the cave, this pile of rocks came tumbling down, completely sealing off the exit.”

It didn’t happen quite that quickly. Hawke had noticed a little nook nearby and couldn’t help but take a detour to poke his nose in it, just in case. Then Carver and Anders got into an argument about Carver’s goal of becoming a financial Grey Warden and Anders’ unrelenting habit of shoving his manifesto into the Hawke household's books whenever he goes over. By the time they got to the exit, it’d been sealed off already and Bartrand was long gone.

Varric must be thinking about it too because he shoots Hawke a glance before continuing, “Needless to say, we were pretty much screwed at that point. We had no reception in that place and who knows how long it would’ve taken for us to dig our way back out. So I suggested we go back and try to find another way out. We go back to the grave and start going deeper until we’re in the middle of this enormous cavern. There’s a couple of little holes up in the ceiling, but it’s _way_ up there. We tried standing on each other’s shoulders but that still wasn’t high enough.”

They didn’t try standing on each other’s shoulders, although that was mostly Carver’s fault. He was convinced that Hawke would drop them all and they’d all die horribly, to which he replied, “Nonsense, I have the balance of a wily goat.”

But Carver was still not convinced because Carver is a non-believer of Hawke’s many talents.

They were still arguing the merits of giving it a try when Anders helpfully pointed out that even if they were to succeed, the dog would have no way of getting up to the top.

“So the ceiling’s a no go, but on the other side of the cavern, there’s this sudden drop off and the rest of it’s submerged in water. The drop off’s so deep we can’t see the bottom and where there’s water there’s gotta be a source, right? We figured if we find the opening, we’d be able to find our way back out and swim back from there. And if we were really lucky, the opening would be near the surface so we wouldn’t have to do any deep water diving and risk drowning.

“The flashlights we had weren’t very strong so we couldn’t see the end of the cave and we didn’t want anyone exploring it on their own. It was a good thing the twins brought along their floats. All we were missing was something to secure them to in case they need to be hauled in real quick. That’s when Hawke dives into the water. We didn’t know what he was doing, but the next thing you know, he comes back up with kelp or seaweed or something to use as rope.”

Lies.

The doughnut floaties the twins brought with them already had a rope attached to them for him to pull them along as he swam like back when they were kids.

Among the people listening, about three quarters of them give him a quick glance as though fashioning rope out of seaweed was something they could see him doing. The other quarter, mostly comprised of his friends, snort and chuckle at the idea.

Varric ignores them and keeps going with his story. “With the seaweed rope tied to the floats, we send the twins out with the flashlights for exploration. Everything’s going fine when suddenly, the twins start screaming bloody hell saying something’s got them. Me and Blondie are hauling them back as fast as we can. And Hawke? He doesn’t hesitate and jumps into the water to go help them. We get Carver and Bethany back, and you can see there are long, deep red streaks on their legs from some sort of jellyfish, but there’s no sign of Hawke.”

He leans in and pauses for dramatic effect. “At this point, we’re worried that whatever the thing is got him, but then whoosh! He surfaces and swims back towards us using only one arm to paddle. I was sure the jellyfish got to him but then he climbs back out and in his other hand, he’s grabbing this creature by the head. He drags it out of the water and I still don’t know what the hell it was. It looked like a jellyfish but it had excellent control over its limbs, and it was the biggest jellyfish I’ve ever seen with tentacles easily the length of Aveline.

“It tries to get Hawke with one of its tentacles but Hawke’s having none of it. You can see he’s furious at the thing for even touching the twins. He slams it down on a rock, stunning it, and then with one foot, he steps on the tentacles and _pulls_. He rips the thing apart and he goes, ‘Looks like you’re all out of legs to stand on.’ Then he flings its head against a wall and leaves it out to dry out and die.”

More lies but partially true.

There was a jellyfish, and it did sting the twins, but no one saw it and no one heroically leapt in the water. He and Anders had frantically reeled the twins back to shore while Varric kept the dog from jumping in. There were no long, deep red streaks, only short, light pinkish welts. And there was no zingy one-liner, which he would’ve happily said if he wasn’t too busy panicking and yelling, “ _Do I pee on it, Anders!? **Do I pee on it!?** ” _and the twins were too busy yelling back at him to “ _Stop! No, please don’t!”_ and “ _Don’t you dare, brother, or I swear to the Maker I will kill you!”_

Things would've gone very badly if Anders wasn't around.

Judging by the way Anders is snickering silently to himself, he probably remembers that part very well.

The rest of the audience, in varying degrees of disbelief, continue to listen, enraptured as Varric explains how they gathered the ingredients to make a salve for the deadly poison, which also wasn’t in any way real. Anders had brought along his first-aid kit, which he never leaves home without—especially when the Hawkes are involved. They rinsed the welts with salt water and bandaged it up.

“When we finally got the twins bandaged, we realized that they couldn’t walk. Hawke, of course, offered to carry them both, but Blondie stepped in and carried Bethany—because, you know,” Varric shakes his arms in demonstration, “slender arms.”

The twins walked just fine, though not without a lot of grumbling on Carver’s part.

Fenris and Isabela snigger while Anders huffs and crosses his arms and mutters under his breath, “Slender arms? This is slander. Just because I don’t have Hawke’s ridiculous biceps doesn’t mean I couldn’t have carried Carver if I wanted to.”

Hawke flexes his arm a little just to confirm that yes, even underneath his suit, he does have nice and ridiculous biceps.

“We’re following the dog and he takes us through all these windy passageways that you could barely squeeze through, and it’s especially hard for Carver and Hawke, but they manage. It was mostly peaceful going except for the nest of cave spiders we stumbled into. And shit, you should’ve seen Hawke. He tore through them single-handedly with Carver on his back like it was nothing.”

Fenris arches a brow skeptically at this and Hawke shrugs. They ran into a couple of cave spiders, and all three Hawkes may have screamed a little when they suddenly appeared, because the Hawkes are not fans of cave spiders, but it wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle.

“I don’t know how long we spent running around in those caves, but eventually, the dog leads us into this little side cavern in the middle of the place and that’s when we find out that the caves aren’t nearly as untouched as Bartrand thought they were. The floor of the side cavern is littered with garbage, very new garbage at that. And the best part? We find this little plastic toy package that used to hold a very…ancient trinket-shaped toy,” Varric has to take a pause to stop laughing.

This part is true. Hawke distinctly remembers that they had to stop because Varric was crying from laughing too hard and had to sit down to keep himself from falling over.

Letting the laughter in the room die down, Varric wipes a tear from his eye and continues, “Eventually, the dog leads us back outside and we find ourselves at the other end of the beach. By then, the sun was setting and I don’t know how long it took for us to walk back to the parking lot with the twins being carried and all that, but it didn’t feel that long because at least we could finally see the sky again. It’s not over though. When we get to the parking lot, it turns out dear old Bartrand decided to drive off with my bloody car.”

Not true.

Varric didn’t even drive that day; he did.

“I think I was ready to cry when Hawke taps me on the shoulder and goes, ‘I don’t know if this will help, but I found this back in the cave. I was going to ask Bartrand about it, but I think I’m more likely to strangle him the next time I see him, so here, why don’t you have it?” and he hands me this old looking coin. I got it appraised when we got back into town and you’d never guess how much it turned out to be worth: a new car and exactly three rounds of pints for the five of us. And I remember saying to Hawke, ‘You know, this sounds exactly like the kind of fun, whacky weekend adventure I’d make up for you.’ And he goes—”

“Weekend adventure? Is that what we’re calling it now?” Hawke finishes for him with a grin, because this part was true. The three rounds of pints part was also true, but that was because Bartrand had a hole in his pocket and dropped a couple of silvers, which Hawke picked up and was unable to return due to Bartrand’s sudden but not unexpected betrayal.

Chuckling, Varric claps him on the back and says, “So there you have it. Next time Bartrand’s in town, you’re all invited to come watch me and Hawke kick his sorry ass. And if you don’t believe me, feel free to go down to the parking lot to check out my sweet new ride.”

The sweet new ride that Varric had been talking about getting for weeks now, Hawke mentally adds.

The audience begins murmuring in disbelief even as they dispersed, leaving the room to go back to work. His friends look like they have a pretty good idea of what really happened that weekend because they know Hawke and Varric personally, and because they’ve taken part in these ‘weekend adventures’ before, and possibly because they heard the story from the twins already. They get up and thank Varric for the story and leave.

Anders is still grinning, probably still thinking about the jellyfish part, and gives Varric a pat on the shoulder as he makes his way to the door. “Your story was mostly true today, I’m surprised—although there were still some gaping inaccuracies I couldn’t help but notice.”

Varric scoffs and holds a hand up to his heart. “Blondie, you wound me. You know most of my stories are based on the truth, or some degree of it. Don’t tell me you’re upset about the ‘slender arms’ bit.”

“I am not, but I’ll have you know that my arms are perfectly normal and strong enough to lift a teenage boy, even if he _is_ Hawke-sized,” Anders replies indignantly.

The two of them leave the room bickering about the kinds of things Anders could or could not lift.

With only him and Fenris left in the room, with an unreadable look on his face when Fenris asks, “How much of that was actually true? Varric paints you as quite the valiant hero. If I didn’t know you and your family, I would have assumed the whole thing false.”

Hawke chuckles and closes his empty lunch container. “Does that mean you can see me ripping some sea monster apart with my bare hands?”

“Not that part, no,” Fenris says with a chuckle. “But I _can_ see you being unlucky enough to get caved in by Varric’s brother and lucky enough to find your way out in less than a day. The part with the coin, I am not so sure about.”

He grins lazily and offers, “Then how about we go grab a bite or something after work and I can tell you my version of the tale?”

Fenris smiles. “I think I’d like that.”


	4. The Way It Should Be

He didn’t know it was possible, but he’s pretty sure he’s getting more sober with each drink. This must be what it feels like to be Isabela, he concludes.

“Another round?” he asks, breaking the heavy silence that’s slowly but noticeably crushing his spirit.

Across the table from him, there’s a relieved sigh from Guardsman Donnic. “Maker, _yes_.”

Ah, yes, Guardsman Donnic. They started calling him by his full title as a fun nickname of sorts, but it sounded so right that it stuck ever since.

There’s another round of awkward silence followed by the pints. He raises his eyes with some difficulty, everything’s feeling quite heavy and sombre and not at all fun, and tries, “So, have you been to any good HR seminars lately? My personal favourites are ‘Respect in the Workplace’ and ‘The Importance of Punctuality’.” He says the last title a little louder and directs it towards the guilty-looking shadow behind the pillar by their table.

Donnic eyes him unsurely before checking his watch and getting up, the relief in his eyes evident. “Sorry, Hawke, I’ve actually got somewhere to be. This was…nice.” He opens his mouth as if to say something like ‘Let’s do this again’, but then thinks better of it (probably in case Hawke decided to take him up on the offer) and says instead, “Thanks for the drinks.”

Once left alone, Hawke empties his lungs with the longest sigh he’s ever heaved. Then he glares at the figure emerging from behind the pillar. “Did I just go on a long, awkward first date with Guardsman Donnic for you, Aveline? When you said you had a thing for him, I didn’t realize you meant you wanted to date him vicariously through me.”

Aveline looks away guiltily. “Sorry, I couldn’t do it. I just…froze up. Again.” She shakes her head and continues rambling, “Never mind, just, let’s just forget about this—all of this. It’s just a stupid crush anyway. Let’s just go join the others, I’ll put you on my tab for the rest of the night.”

He stands up and frowns. “No way, it’s not like you to give up on something so easily. And it’s definitely not stupid—well, this whole night and everything so far has been pretty stupid, but your feelings definitely are not. Look, if you’re out of ideas, I’ll try to come up with something, alright? And if all else fails, we’ll bombard him with copper marigolds until he gets it. What could possibly go wrong?”

That gets a laugh out of her and she relaxes, crossing her arms. “I’m starting to understand why Varric hates that phrase.”

“Nonsense! He loves it! Where else would he get all his stories from? Now, you were saying something about putting me on your tab?” he says, walking over to join the others at Varric’s private booth upstairs. His legs aren’t as steady as he expected them to be, and he’s surprised to find that the alcohol has affected his body more than his brain let on.

When they join the others, mainly Varric, Isabela, and Anders (Fenris was busy and Merrill had to leave early), Isabela takes one look at the haunted look on his face and laughs. “A little too much fun with Guardsman Donnic, Hawke? If I didn’t know about Aveline’s little crush beforehand, I would’ve thought you gave up on taut and controlled and decided to go for…sideburns instead.”

Hawke snorts and waves his hands. “No, no, taut and controlled all the way for me. I wouldn’t _dare_ infringe on Aveline’s territory. Besides, I doubt he’ll call me up for another date after tonight; we were clearly lacking chemistry. The guardsman is all yours, Aveline. So _please_ , talk to him or something already.”

Aveline averts her gaze and fidgets. “You know I’ve tried, Hawke, but I never know what to say or how to say it. How do I even announce my intention? It’s not easy, is it? Look at how far you’ve gotten with Fenris.”

“Hey, I announce my intentions constantly,” Hawke protests. “Constantly and loudly.”

“You flirt with _everyone,_ Hawke,” she says, and he can’t deny it. “But I’ve seen the way you fumble around him and the way you flirt _at_ him. It’s quite…difficult when it comes to someone you’re serious about, right?—that wasn’t an invitation to take things into your own hands, by the way.”

Isabela grins. “You’re being uncharacteristically hesitant. What happened to my big battering ram of a girl? You don’t need to present a dowry to announce your intention, just use your words. Or your body. Or both! You should go and bulldoze him over! Being on top’s more fun anyway.”

That gets incoherent noises out of Aveline. “Are you trying to be supportive?”

“I’m _always_ supportive of people trying to get laid!” Isabela replies. “I’m such a helper—especially for people looking for a third party to join them!”

At this point, Hawke decides that he’d rather not dwell on the matter any longer for the night. “Well, it’s too late now. We’ll have to wait till we see him again,” he says. “All I want tonight is to drink away everything that just happened.”

Aveline raises her stein. “I’ll drink to that.”

Varric gets that grin on his face and Hawke knows he’s in for a long night and an even longer hangover the next morning. Without waiting, Varric raises a hand and flags down his favourite barmaid and calls out, “Edwina! Another round for everyone! Looks like it’s going to be one of those nights!”

‘One of those nights’ turns out to be an apt description of how the night goes. They’re all quite drunk (some more than others) when a bar brawl starts up downstairs. Aveline goes running down, eager to take out her alcohol-infused frustration on drunkards. Isabela follows, eager to join the action and excitement. Anders doesn’t bother getting involved with the fighting, not with the ladies in the foray, and stays to the side in case anyone needed first-aid. Varric keeps his distance with his stein still in hand and records the whole thing.

And Hawke, drunk out of his brains, finds himself stuck on the stairs.

None of them remember they have work the next day.

\--

The hangover’s as bad as he expected and worse. He manages to get out of bed on time, which is already more than he’d hope for.

The rest of the morning is less productive.

Hawke stumbles into his bathroom and stands under the showers, hating himself and his poor life choices until Bethany knocks on the door to make sure he didn’t drown in a puddle. So he steps out of the showers after that and decides to stand in front of the sink with a towel around his waist instead. Minutes pass before it’s Carver’s turn to barge in to make sure he didn’t fall asleep and drown in the sink. Apparently his siblings believe him to be prone to drowning when hungover.

They’re probably right.

It takes a lot of effort, but Hawke eventually manages to drag himself back into his room, change, and slowly creep downstairs, leaning against the wall whenever he could for support. In the kitchen, the twins are waiting for him with towels and a blow dryer in their hands, ready to help dry off his dripping wet hair. On the table, breakfast and lunch are already prepared even though it’s his turn to cook.

“We heard someone helping you up the stairs last night,” Bethany explains, rubbing his hair down like she would the dog.

Carver rolls his eyes and wraps his towel around Hawke’s neck before the collar of his shirt can soak up any more water. “More like late this morning. Honestly, will you never learn?” he complains, turning on the blow dryer. The noise makes his head throb, but he's too tired to move away so he just sits there and bears with it.

She shakes her head and lets out a snort. “Don’t mind him, brother. He’s the one who woke me up this morning to insist I walk the dog and help with breakfast. Look, he even packed you your favourite juice box for lunch.”

“Bethany!” Carver whines, putting down the dryer, betrayal written all over his face.

“Just giving credit where it’s due.”

Hawke’s throat tightens and he doesn’t know if it’s from how touched he is or the nausea. “My beautiful, lovely angels, I’d cry if I wasn’t so dehydrated, and I’d hug you both if I didn’t think the pressure to my stomach would make me vomit. Come here,” he waves them over despite their obvious reluctance after that statement, “I’m not going to hug you, I promise.”

He plants a loud kiss on both their heads, much to Carver’s protest.

Bethany gives him a kiss on the cheek in return while Carver attempts to wipe the kiss off his hair. “We need to go catch the bus. We’ll see you later, brother. Don’t be late for work!” she says, dragging her twin out the door with her.

Left alone with the dog, Hawke turns to him and says, “The real challenge will be making it to work without losing my breakfast in the car.”

In response, the dog lets out a concerned whine and barks at him.

The sound ricochets around in his skull, hitting all of the most sensitive and painful spots. Hawke cradles his head and whimpers, “I love you too, boy.”

\--

He manages to meet the challenge, but only barely, and he ends up forgoing his coffee for punctuality—something he’s sure he’ll regret in about ten minutes. Shuffling over to his desk with his hands up to shield his eyes from the too-bright lights, he walks past Anders, who’s curled up and unmoving with his head down on the desk and a hand on the mouse.

Hawke considers saying hello but he’s out of breath and possibly dying, so he settles for a pat on the other’s chair to alert him of his presence. At his desk is the beautiful sight of his Boom waiting for him along with Fenris whose eyebrows seem to be conflicted between making confused and concerned movements.

“You look terrible, Hawke,” Fenris says.

Plopping down in his chair with a relieved sigh, he cradles the cup of coffee in his hands. “I feel terrible. I am terrible. I am the epitome of terrible. Terribleness is me. Did you get this for me? You’re wonderful and irreplaceable and if you’d like, I’ll give you my firstborn since Anders rejected the offer last time. How’d you know I’d need this?”

The concern fades into amusement. “I’ll pass on the child, thank you. You sent me a message yesterday—or rather, early this morning. I understood the ‘get me a Boom, please’ part, but I’m afraid the rest of it was indecipherable.”

He immediately whips out his phone and scrolls through his messages.

_Soy into rally lineup tutu bntw in gffoonns new resin Juan over to mods sdi cxxxxan yiuo gfdet mnnne a boom pleas?? Thawnklcthou_

“Maker’s breath, when did I even write this?” he mutters, partially curious about the original message he was trying to send and partially grateful that it got so jumbled up because it was bound to be something terribly embarrassing. “I’m glad I managed to get the most important part right, but I have no idea what I was trying to say.”

Fenris shrugs. “That makes the two of us then. Perhaps if you get that drunk again, it’ll make sense to you.”

Hawke groans and leans over his desk, his head pounding. “Don’t hold your breath. I’d rather not go through this again. It’s been a while since I’ve gone all out like this. I remember a bar fight, but since I’m not injured at all, I’m guessing I managed to avoid it somehow. I’m sure whoever was still relatively sober had a good laugh at my expense.”

“That would not be surprising. I suppose I’ll find the videos when I start getting emails about people trying to access flagged sites,” Fenris replies with a hint of a smile.

He glances up. “You get emails whenever we go to blocked sites?”

“Yes.”

“Then how many emails do you get from my account a day?” he asks.

“Too many to count,” Fenris says easily. “Although none of them are malicious or any cause for alarm; they’re mostly just dog videos.”

Hawke lets out a laugh. “I love dogs. Did you watch any of them? I bet you did. I only look up the finest of dog videos.”

Fenris chuckles and glances away for a moment. “Of course not. That would be unprofessional of me to watch what others cannot. But I must say, mabaris are certainly a fascinating breed.”

Eager to impress, but in a low key way, he says, “I have a mabari; his name is Honeypads. Varric taught him how to play Wicked Grace and he’s better than Anders at it. At first, I was kind of iffy about it, but hey, he’s making enough to buy his own treats now.”

“Impressive. Would he understand what is strong and soft and ages well? I’ve been trying to figure it out since yesterday,” Fenris says, only mostly serious.

He bursts into laughter. It hurts his stomach to laugh this hard, but he can’t stop. Taking gulps of air in between bouts of laughter, he wipes a tear from his eye and wheezes, “Copper marigolds.”

Furrowing his brows, Fenris says, “Copper marigolds? I don’t get it. I thought it’d be wine or cheese.”

Hawke inhales deeply, trying to catch his breath as he logs in. “No, but that’s a good, logical guess—don’t tell Aveline. It was a cute idea once she explained it, really, but I guess its meaning was lost on Guardsman Donnic and the rest of the world.”

Still endearingly confused, with the cock of his head, Fenris asks, “Guardsman Donnic?”

“Yeah, a friend of yours?” he asks a little too quickly.

Fenris shrugs. “We play Diamondback sometimes. That’s why I couldn’t make it last night. I heard some…interesting things about you during our game.”

Hawke holds up a hand. “One moment, before you say anything, I’d just like to clarify that whatever you may have heard, it’s all nothing more than a misunderstanding.”

“You don’t even know what I’m about to say yet.”

He arches a brow. “Yes, well, given the disastrous chain of events that led me to this state, I’m pretty sure that whatever Guardsman Donnic, however nice a guy he is, had to say about me was less than stellar. I don’t even swing that way—or, I do, but I don’t swing _his_ way. There’s a difference. Only Aveline swings his way.

“Besides, I bet anything he told you was in no way as fun as whatever you’ll be hearing from Varric later,” he says. Then he adds for good measure, “I’m pretty sure Varric will tell you about how I, with the strength of a hundred men, threw a table across the room.”

Aveline was the one who, with the strength of a hundred men, threw the table across the room.

She was probably aiming for Isabela.

“Never mind that, though,” he says, deftly changing the subject. “Now that I know you know Guardsman Donnic though, a new plan comes to mind. On the assumption that I live past today, free up your schedule for this weekend, Fenris, we’ve got things to do. For Aveline!” Hawke announces. And he has no idea why, but like everyone else he’s ever said that to, Fenris merely shrugs and goes along with it.

“Well, at least one good thing came out of your outing last night,” Fenris says.

Hawke blinks. “Oh?”

Fenris nods towards Anders, who still hasn’t moved. “I haven’t heard anything about unions all morning.”

In response, Anders stretches out his arm and flips him off.

\--

“Aveline, make sure you’re free this weekend,” he says the next day, on his way to drop off his daily suggestions. After a whole day of bland food and an assortment of questionable hangover cures, he’s finally not feeling like death anymore. “We’re doing stuff.”

“Sure,” Aveline agrees with a shrug. “What kind of stuff?”

Hawke returns the shrug, because he hasn’t figured it out yet either.

She narrows her eyes. “This better not have anything to do with the Guardsman Donnic thing.”

“No! Guardsman Donnic? Who even is that? _Ha_ ,” he says with a sharp, exaggerated laugh because lying to Aveline has never ended well for him. Or, he’s never tried, but he values his life enough to not ever attempt it. “Maybe? Or, maybe it’s just, you know, stuff. With people.”

“Hawke, I said I didn’t want you taking over this for me,” she warns, her arms crossed.

“C’mon, it won’t be that bad. Just trust your friends a little, okay?”

Aveline, being one of the most rational of his friends, arches a brow skeptically. But then she, too, succumbs and nods. “Fine. Just call me or text me the time and place or something.”

He grins. “You’re the best.”

Then Fenris and Donnic walk by and the two of them get distracted by the sight and let out a simultaneous, dreamy sigh. They exchange glances and quickly turn away sheepishly, the mood suddenly unbearably awkward. “Right, back to work then,” Aveline says, clearing her throat loudly.

“Yep,” he says, marching back to his desk.

\--

Hawke ends up deciding to take them on a hike because nothing sober ever happens when he sits down at an establishment for an extended period of time. He’s got Aveline next to him, his dog in front of him, Fenris and Donnic in the back, and the rest of his friends spying on them from somewhere off-trail.

It starts off a little awkwardly. There’s dread written all over his face when Donnic sees them, Aveline full on glares at him despite knowing about it already, and he finds out that Fenris is endearingly horrible at lying when he’s asked about the hike and shrugs and points at him and says, “I…don’t know? Ask Hawke, it was his idea.”

Endearing—even as he gets thrown under the bus.

Luckily, after bulling past the first fifteen minutes of heavy awkwardness, things start mellowing out. They’re walking through the Wounded Coast, surrounded by grassy hills and wind blowing in seemingly every direction. With such breathtaking scenery (both in terms of beauty and those horribly steep hills they had to climb), it’s hard to stay tense.

And then Hawke notices something.

“Wait, this isn’t right. This is turning into a normal hike,” he says with a start.

Aveline furrows her brows. “Excuse me?” she says, giving him a chance to correct himself.

He quickly shakes his head and slows his pace. “Nothing. Just gonna go talk to Fenris for a bit or something. Keep Guardsman Donnic company for a bit, okay? I’ll even butter him up a little for you. This is your chance to ‘announce your intentions’, Aveline!”

“Oh, no you don’t. I was enjoying myself,” Aveline growls, but it’s already too late and Hawke, with a wink, has backpedaled beyond reach.

Falling in step with the other two, he exchanges looks with both of them before saying, “Nice day for a hike, hmm? The weather’s nice and it’s all very…outdoorsy.”

“…right,” Donnic says.

Even Fenris, who’s in on the plan, gives him a blank look at his attempt at small talk.

Hawke huffs silently to himself at the lack of response. He supposes he could always ask to steal Fenris away (in all meanings of the phrase), but that seems to lack subtlety, which is a trait he doesn’t have an abundance of, but he still likes to try his hand at it every now and then. So he leans down to pet his dog before pointing somewhere up ahead. “Hey, look, boy! Is that a _fennec_?”

Honeypads’ ears perk up and he takes off as though he wasn’t leashed and attached to the sizable man that is Hawke.

Grinning, he grabs Fenris’ hand in the last minute and drags the other along as he’s towed away by his dog.

They’re pulled past Aveline who watches them, too shocked to react.

The dog drags them up a hill and comes to stop once they’re out of sight. He lets out a bark and wags his stubby little tail happily at a job well done.

“Where’s the fennec? I don’t see one,” Fenris says, sounding winded and disappointed.

“No fennec,” Hawke tells him, hunched over a little from the sprint, “just excellent deployment of a code word between me and Honeypads.”

Fenris arches a brow. “Hawke.”

“I use code words with my dog, what about it?”

“No, it’s just,” Fenris trails off, glancing down at their hands, fingers still entwined.

“Oh!” Hawke jumps a little and drops the other’s hand as though burnt. “Sorry, I forgot ‘cause it was nice. I mean, your hands aren’t clammy at all. Top class hand-holding hand right there. I’d hold your hand any time,” he blurts, because he’s nowhere near as suave and smooth as Varric often paints him to be.

Luckily, Fenris decides to spare him from himself and says, “Tempting an offer as that is,” it’s a miracle Hawke’s head doesn’t explode right then and there, “we should move on, and I’m curious about this code word you were talking about.”

“Ah, yes, I trained Honeypads so that whenever I point in a direction and say the ‘f’ word, he’ll go running away, dragging me along,” he explains, pleased to be talking about his dog instead of digging his own grave. “It’s a game we play, and it’s gotten me out of _so_ many awkward situations, let me tell you. This is why Mabaris are the best breed.” He leans down to rub his dog’s face, cooing, “Who’s my smart, funny boy? You are! Yes, you are!”

In response, Honeypads barks and gives him a slobbery kiss.

Suddenly, his pocket starts buzzing. Hawke pulls out his phone and puts it on speakerphone. “Hey, Varric, has the eagle landed?”

“Ha! I wish,” Varric replies. “Hate to waste you and Broody’s graceful exit, but I think a more accurate description of it would be ‘the eagle is awkwardly circling around its prey and making weird small talk because it’s too scared to land’.”

In the background, they can hear Anders scoffing. “Yes, because you always strive for accuracy, right?”

“You’re never gonna let it go, are you, Blondie?” A sigh and probable eye-roll. “Everyone’s a critic.”

“Oh, look at them,” Merrill says. “They’re so cute! I wish they would kiss already!”

Hawke laughs. “If only.” He motions for Fenris to follow as he continues down the path, looking for lookout points to join in the spying. “Ideas,” he asks his phone, “preferably while staying out of sight?”

“We could create a landslide or some sort of dangerous situation,” Varric suggests. “Nothing says romance like facing danger together.”

He makes an exasperated face that has Fenris arching a brow. “Danger? Really, Varric? Maker preserve me, you’ve probably already killed one of them off in your head, haven’t you?”

Varric pauses. “You know me too well, Hawke. But, c‘mon, what’s more romantic than a dying confession?”

“A living confession? Being alive? Together? Romantically? As in not ending it right at the confession? I don’t know about you, but I think that’d be pretty romantic,” Hawke says, his brows furrowed.

“Too cliché.”

“And your idea is too lethal,” he retorts. “Next?”

It’s Anders who speaks up next, “Here’s a crazy idea, how about we just leave them alone?”

Laughing right into the phone, Hawke says, “You’re right, that _is_ crazy. I can’t see them yet. Can you tell me what they’re doing right now?”

There’s a humming noise then Anders says, “Not very much. Guardsman Donnic is just walking and Aveline’s looking at the sky like she might be praying?”

“Praying for help, Anders,” Hawke says. “From us.”

“Or for you to meet a grisly death,” Anders retorts.

He wouldn’t put it past Aveline to be daydreaming about his gruesome end. He also wouldn’t past her to actually kill him for running off. “Yes, well, if this doesn’t work out, she’ll take the Maker’s good work into her own hands and that will actually be a tragedy—and one I am quite keen on avoiding. So, no to your idea, Anders. Next?”

“Oh! We could throw flowers at them and shower them in flower petals!” Merrill says excitedly, probably jumping up and down on the spot if the rhythmic crunch of dirt is anything indication. “Wouldn’t that just be so romantic? And it’d set the mood! And it’d be so pretty! And maybe they’ll kiss!”

She’s adorable and he almost wishes he didn’t have to say no. “That’d give away our position,” Fenris cuts in, saving him the agony of explaining why the plan wouldn’t work.

“Oh,” she says again, disappointed this time. “I suppose you’re right, Fenris.”

“I’ll keep a pocket full of petals in case we come across them kissing and I’ll chuck it at them, okay, Merrill?” Hawke offers quickly in hopes of appeasing his intern. “If that doesn’t happen, you can chuck flowers at everyone at work on Monday on my behalf.”

Coming across a small opening looking out onto the trail below, he spots the pair walking in heavy silence. He doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that Aveline gave up on the small talk, but he can feel the sombre mood even from afar. Fenris arches a brow and crosses his arms when he's passed the phone. “This isn’t going so well, I see. Hawke, what are you doing?”

Hawke’s plucking the petals off of nearby flowers and stuffing them into his pockets. Giving the other a shrug, he says, “Just in case of emergencies.”

A little muffled in the background, he can hear Anders saying, “Isabela, don’t stand so close to the edge.”

“Aww, are you afraid I’ll fall?” Isabela coos.

“No, I’m afraid Aveline will look up and see your cleavage,” Anders retorts.

A laugh. “You are just the sweetest.” There are a couple a steps, possibly a hop. “Say, why are we so worried about staying hidden?” Isabela asks, her voice suddenly loud and clear. “It’s not like she doesn’t know we’re watching. I bet she’s expecting us to interfere.”

“What’re you trying to say, Isabela?” Hawke asks, filling his pockets to the brim with petals.

“We should shout things at them!” she says into the phone. “Encouraging things! Like, ‘bloom her rose already’ or ‘explore her deep roads’! This way, they’ll get the point and we’ll have fun! Whoever makes them blush the hardest wins and gets free drinks for the rest of the night!”

He laughs in spite of himself. “That’s hardly a fair match, we all know you’d win at that. You’ve probably spent the last week preparing for this. You’ll win and then you’ll bleed our wallets dry.”

There’s a grin in Isabela’s voice. “That’s true. Oh, and Fenris? Is it polka dots?”

“No,” Fenris barks. Then a tad bit flustered and far more impatient than he was a moment ago, he asks, “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Can’t we just confront them about it directly?”

Hawke shakes his head and takes the phone back. “Under normal circumstances, maybe. But Aveline’s definitely going to strangle me the second she sees me. At this point, I’d have a better chance of surviving a bear attack than Aveline. Are you and Anders trying to get me killed?”

Fenris makes an affronted face at being lumped together with Anders, and Anders makes an affronted noise on the phone.

“What’s your big, brilliant idea then, Hawke?” Varric asks.

His plan was to text his siblings (mainly Bethany) for ideas, but before he can admit to it, there’s a sharp whistle from nearby and Honeypads goes tearing down the hill towards the sound. Hawke only has a moment to comprehend the situation and tighten his grip on his phone before he goes flying down towards what appears to be a horrible death.

He lets out a strangled yelp as he desperately tries to stay on his feet as he slides and jumps past obstacles on his way down. It’s not until he’s nearly at the bottom that he thinks to let the leash go. But just then, the dog gives one final tug and sends him flying to the ground.

“There you are, I knew you were close,” a voice says.

Hawke opens his eyes and sees Aveline, both amused and unamused for different reasons, and behind her, Donnic, looking confused and possibly concerned on his behalf. “Am I dead?” he groans, looking around. “The scenery is certainly disappointing for the afterlife. I expected something less…wounded and coastal.”

There’s a bark and he gets a face full of dog kisses and drool.

Aveline crosses her arms. “You’re not dead, Hawke. Maker knows you’d never die from something as mundane as a little tumble down a hill.”

“Are you here to finish the job then?” he asks, pushing Honeypads away. He’s aching and sore all over from the fall, but he doesn’t feel any safer now that he’s come to a halt.

“Possibly,” Aveline answers. “Tell me: where did you and Fenris run off to?”

From behind somewhere, Hawke can hear shoes sliding down the hill and landing gracefully nearby. “We were…” Fenris pauses and glances over at Hawke, who’s pushing himself up with a stifled sigh, for guidance on how and what to lie about but gets none. “…holding hands?”

Everything goes quiet for a moment before Hawke nods in agreement. “It’s true. We held hands. Fenris has very nice hands for holding—”

Looking at their astonished faces, Hawke’s pretty sure he’s in the clear when suddenly, from a bush nearby, there’s a loud, “Move, Varric, I can’t see!”

“You think I can, Blondie? Those two are blocking the view! Hey, Hawke, move out of the way!”

“Oh, are Aveline and Guardsman Donnic kissing? I hope I’m not missing their kiss!”

“I still think it’d be better if he just bent her over a basin.”

Too horrified to move, Hawke’s grateful that Fenris still has enough sense about him to turn around to glare in the general direction of their friends as he reaches into the bushes and grabs the phone that flew out of Hawke's hand at some point during his descent down the hill.

Varric immediately stops and says, “Oh, shit, shut up, guys. Hey, shut up!”

Desperate to do something— _anything_ , Hawke reaches into his pocket and throws the petals into the air, letting them fall uselessly around the gaping pair. “Surprise?”

From the phone, Merrill squeals in delight, “He’s doing the flower thing!”

Donnic’s eyebrows furrow as he looks from Hawke to Aveline then back to Hawke and up the hill then back to Aveline. “I think I…should…go.”

And then he walks off.

Leaving Hawke and co. to face Aveline’s wrath on their own.

“ _You_ ,” Aveline hisses, nothing but fury in her eyes. “First thing tomorrow morning, you’re going to come in and help me fix this stupid mess and then I will kill you— _all_ of you slowly and painfully,” she says loudly.

\--

This is it.

This is how he’s going die.

He’s given the twins kisses and the dog a long walk; there’s not much left for him to do.

Sipping his Boom, he feels a strange sense of acceptance and resignation at his fate.

At least he got to hold Fenris’ hand.

Without stopping by his desk, he walks straight over to the IT room where Aveline’s already waiting for him. She’s pacing back and forth, worried and agitated. “He’s probably already filed a complaint with Meredith. What if I lose my job over this?”

“I don’t think—” he tries.

“You don’t get to think anything,” Aveline snaps.

Hawke obediently lets her go back to her agonizing and continues drinking the last coffee of his life. One by one, the rest of the group show up and they all watch her fret in silence.

“Aveline?”

They all turn to see Donnic standing there, fidgeting and unnerved by their collective stares. Aveline’s eyes widen. “Guardsman Donnic?”

Bulling through the awkwardness, Donnic clears his throat and says, “Yes, would you mind if we talked? Alone?”

Fenris opens up the room for them and they watch as the two disappear.

A minute passes.

Then five.

Then ten.

They continue standing around obediently, waiting for their imminent deaths.

Fifteen minutes pass.

Then twenty, and that’s when Cullen comes around and looks at them all like they’ve lost their minds and ushers them back to their respective departments (except Fenris, who decides to go get a coffee instead).

The day flies by and he feels strangely detached from everything as though it were all a dream and the tables and figures on his screen were just figments of his imagination when Aveline suddenly appears next to his desk. “Hawke.”

He looks up. “Am I first to go then? Alright, should I lay out a tarp in case there’s blood splatter?”

She chuckles, all murderous intent gone. “Guardsman Donnic didn’t file a complaint.”

“Oh?” he says, trying to sound surprised.

“He asked me out on a date.”

“I see you two managed to announce your intentions after all. I hope your first date won’t be drinks at the Hanged Man because I already went on that date for you, remember?” he teases.

Aveline smacks him on the arm, right on one of the many bruises he acquired from the hike, but it’s light (for Aveline) and she’s laughing. “You’re the worst, you know that? It was all so stupid and you were especially stupid, but you also made everything wonderful, so thank you, I guess.”

Hawke shrugs, an easy smile on his lips. “That’s my job. Making things terrible then better. Just…don’t return the favour.”

She smiles. “I make no promises.”


	5. A Talking To

Merrill’s frowning.

Hawke does a double take to confirm that, yes, Merrill is indeed frowning.

He turns around to tell the others when Isabela suddenly lets out a scream and ducks behind him, and in turn, he ducks behind Aveline, who’s already shielding everyone else. “I could be at home taking up crocheting or home shopping right now,” he hisses at Varric.

“Please, and miss out on all the fun? As I recall, you’re the one who ran in here all ‘I’m Hawke and I’m fearless until something scary comes along. C’mon guys, what’s the worst that could happen?’” Varric mimics horribly.

“Evidently the worst that could happen is the house turns out to be haunted—which it _is_. Also, I sound nothing like that,” he retorts indignantly.

Being the mature adult that he is, Hawke’s about to throw back a poor imitation of his own when Anders comes running into the room. “I heard a scream, Hawke, was that you? Is everything alright?”

Hawke makes a face. “Hey! That was _one_ time!”

Isabela sniggers. “One time? Please, we’ve all heard you scream before.”

Before he can retort, Fenris decides to point out, “Not to raise any panic, but there are things levitating down the hall.”

They all turn to face the hall. “Fenris, which part of that were we not supposed to panic about?” he asks quietly, as though to avoid spooking the floating jars and books.

“None of it, but I just thought I’d share anyway,” Fenris says, rolling his eyes.

“In about ten seconds, I’m just going to smash everything,” Aveline says, her eyes never leaving the hallway.

“I would not be averse to that,” Hawke admits.

Varric frowns. “I would. Think about the property damages!”

“Floating shards of glass would probably be more dangerous anyway,” Anders helpfully points out. “Besides, in these kinds of situations, it’s normally you who gets hit, so take your pick, Hawke: blunt force trauma or lacerations and impalement?”

Hawke ponders his friend’s words for a moment. As he does, his brain suddenly goes into overdrive, bringing up memory after memory until he has to shake himself free from the thoughts. “I think I just had a traumatic flashback,” he mutters. “Anders?”

Anders shakes his head. “Don’t even try giving me that look, Hawke. Do I look like a miracle worker? What you need for that isn’t first-aid, it’s a therapist.”

“I change my mind. Please don’t smash everything, Aveline,” Hawke says. Then he turns to address the house and adds, “If it’s not too much to ask, I want to keep as much blood inside my body as possible today. Why am I always the target anyway?”

When he doesn’t hear Merrill’s blunt but sincere suggestion (probably something along the lines of “Maybe it’s because you’re so big—not that you’re _big_ , but you’re just…large? Oh dear, I’m making this worse, aren’t I? Sorry, I’ll just stop talking now.”), he turns and looks around only to see her not paying attention and still frowning. This worries him because they’re not currently in a situation where any of them can afford to be distracted, and also because for Merrill to be _this_ distracted, something must be horribly wrong.

He wants to snap her out of it and warn her about the dangers of not paying attention in a haunted house but then suddenly Aveline ducks and he gets a book to the head. “Ow!” he yelps, turning back around only to see a large jar flying towards him.

Before he can react, several people kick him out of the way while shouting for him to get out of the way. Out of all the feet kicking him, he can distinctly tell one apart from the others even as he topples to the ground from a kick to the back of the knees (courtesy of one Varric Tethras).

“Maker’s breath, Isabela, are you wearing daggers for shoes?” he complains, scrambling to get back onto his feet.

Isabela shrugs. “I thought we’d be up against something more corporeal. Got a problem with them? I got them from this excellent place next to the hat shop.”

He raises a brow and eyes them for a moment. “Was the place an _arms vendor_ by any chance?”

“Enough,” Fenris barks. With one hand, he hauls Hawke to his feet, which leaves Hawke momentarily speechless because _wow_. Unexpectedly strong. But in a very welcomed way. “Let’s do this somewhere else.”

“Oh, I know exactly where I’d like to do this,” Hawke mutters to himself with a stupid grin.

This earns him a chortle from Fenris and a stern glare from Aveline. “There’s a time and place for everything, Hawke.” She then drags him away by the collar with a strength he’s come to intimately know and expect from the woman (but not before he manages to exchange fist bumps with Isabela). And as if to prove her point, another book flies and smacks him in the face.

Hawke hears a giggle and glances over to see Merrill trying to hide her laughter. “I’m sorry, Hawke, it was funny—not you getting hurt though! I didn’t mean to laugh at you getting hit, but it was funny. Sorry, we should probably leave now,” she says. He relaxes a little at the ranting and makes a mental note to talk to her about the frowny faces later.

“You kind of deserved that for making jokes in the middle of a haunting,” Anders says.

He scoffs. “Thanks for the support. I guess you could say…”

Anders arches a brow sharply. “No, Hawke, don’t.”

“What _ghosts_ around _comes_ around.”

“Are you physically incapable of _not_ saying it? Andraste, I swear, this is why you’re always the one getting injured,” Anders mutters behind his facepalm.

Merrill and Varric are the only ones that deign to laugh at his horrible joke. “I’ll use that line when I tell this story at lunch on Monday,” Varric says, “unless I decide to make it more action-y, then maybe I’ll use ‘May you rest in pieces’ instead. You know, looking around, I still think this place could be worth investing in.”

“You’d be better off investing in a torch to burn this place down,” Fenris mutters.

However, all the giggles come to a stop when wispy white lights start taking on human forms and a woman’s piercing scream suddenly erupts from behind them. The seven of them immediately start scrambling towards the closest exit, the screams following them the whole way out; but at that point, it was hard to tell whether it was coming from the spirit or them.

\--

“I’ll never understand why you bother choosing passwords you can’t remember,” Fenris says on Monday with his arms loosely crossed so as to not impede his caffeine consumption.

Hawke shrugs. “To be fair, getting chased out of a haunted mansion by disembodied screams makes it hard to remember things like new passwords. As for the other times, if you give me enough time, I can probably come up with half decent excuses for those too.”

Fenris huffs. “I do not doubt that. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough free time to listen to all of those excuses, as amazing as I’m sure they are.”

“Don’t worry, that just means I’ll get to reuse the best ones so you won’t miss out on anything. I’m very kind and thoughtful that way.”

“Evidently,” Fenris says dryly. “The clue you sent me was ‘Incurred the wrath of the heavens but it was totally worth it’?”

“Sadness cakes,” he breathes. “I still stand by the fact that they were completely worth it though. The twins and I were visiting my cousin so we went to this café and bought these overpriced little cakes as gifts. They’re made of deep mushrooms and anise or something. ‘The Exquisite Misery’ I think it was called? Not really something you’d try, but definitely something you’d give someone else to try.”

Actually, after endless egging and double dares with no take backsies, the three of them end up splitting a single cake and may or may not have ended up crying in the store. Judging by Fenris’ expression, he suspected as much.

“So we hand them over to Alistair and he immediately eats one whole and I’ve never seen a grown man cry so hard. And surprise, surprise, cousin was not pleased—after she stopped laughing anyway. She then proceeded to put the little cakes away to take to work. Is it any wonder she’s my favourite cousin?” He’s about to continue on about how much he wants to drop by to see if Sten and Shale were capable of shedding tears, but then Merrill walks by, still frowning.

She walks by without so much as a wave.

Hawke’s train of thought comes to a halt at that. He turns back to Fenris, who had followed his gaze and is now furrowing his brows in confusion.

“That was weird, right? It wasn’t just me? I should probably try to figure out what’s happening to Merrill,” he says ruefully. “My stories are nowhere near as riveting as Varric’s anyway.”

Fenris exhales softly, a hint of a laugh. “They’re certainly less prone to extravagance, but I enjoy them nonetheless.”

“Flatterer.”

“I try. Go help your intern, we’ll finish this another time.”

Hawke’s brain comes to full stop this time. No one should be allowed to be that perfect.

“Aww, I’m touched. It’s about time you noticed,” Varric suddenly says.

He whirls around, clutching at his chest. “Maker’s breath, did I say that out loud? I swear, if I drop dead from a heart attack, I hope I come back to haunt you as a sad ghost, Varric.”

Varric scoffs. “You know I’d welcome the company. I’d even redecorate the house and give you a proper haunting nook where you can welcome all my unwelcomed guests with soulful wails and rattling chains. Actually, maybe I’ll leave a torch out in the open and you can burn all my unwanted mail for me.”

Chuckling despite himself, Hawke shakes his head. “You’ve thought about this far too thoroughly. Let me guess, that was your plan for that haunted house you dragged us to?”

“Hey, I still think it had potential. A nice coat of paint and no one will ever notice the disembodied screams. Maybe it wasn’t the best place to start when looking to get a foot into the real estate business, but hey, who hasn’t made mistakes? Don’t tell me you’re still upset about that?”

“About being attacked by ghosts while you were all, ‘Look at me, I’m Varric. C’mon, guys, I found this place I think I can buy for cheap and sell for mountains of gold! It’ll be _fun_! Now watch as I inappropriately stroke my phone’,” Hawke mimics loudly.

Varric laughs knowingly. “You’ve been waiting all weekend to do that, haven’t you?”

“You have no idea.”

“Hawke said in defeat.”

“Hey!”

\--

He decides to ask Aveline first because Aveline knows everything that goes on on their floor.

“Code Blue? Merrill? No, I haven’t the slightest idea why. Have you tried talking to her?” Aveline suggests, ever the voice of reason.

Hawke snorts. “Ask her? Just like that? That’s a ridiculous idea. I expected better from you, Aveline.”

“What? I hope you weren’t expecting me to go along with your plan to snoop around until you find something out because I’m busy today.” Sighing, she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. It’s her ‘I’m right and we both know it’ gesture, which used to intimidate him because he used to get it mixed up with her ‘I’m going to curb-stomp your face in about two seconds’ gesture. “Maybe you should ask Carver then, I’m sure he’s especially perceptive when it comes to Merrill.”

He waves her off with a laugh. “I’m not doing that! He’s probably in class right now, anyway.”

\--

_Hey, any idea what’s wrong with Merrill?_

**_What? What do you mean? Is she alright???_ **

Taking that as a no, Hawke sighs and puts his phone away without replying.

**_Brother?_ **

**_BROTHER_ **

\--

He decides to ask Isabella next because he’s seen the two talk, and she calls Merrill ‘Kitten’, which is one of the most affectionate and nonsexual things he’s ever heard come out of Isabella’s mouth. But then again, she has a bunch of nicknames reserved for Aveline as well, so maybe she’s just a lady’s lady. He’s also quite sure that if he ever said that to her, she’d probably make the lewdest gestures and say, “Oh, not _just_.”

But as it is, Isabella’s not paying any attention to him and is currently hunched over her desk writing something out—something rather official looking. That doesn’t stop him from asking her about Merrill though. Because why would it?

“Merrill? She does seem a little down lately, but she hasn’t said anything to me,” Isabella says. “If you’re worried, just suck it up and ask her what’s wrong, you big baby.”

This makes him pause for a moment, the words clicking in his head. He makes a face. “I can’t believe you’re saying the same thing as Aveline. It’s not like you to take this so lightly.”

She snorts and says, “I’ll take _you_ lightly—in the backroom.” Then she holds her fist up for a bump and he begrudgingly obliges.

“What are you even doing?” Hawke asks.

Without looking away, she asks, “What do you mean?”

“I mean what’s so important right now that you’re passing up the chance to nose around the office with me.” He glances over her shoulder. “Is that a betting contract you’re drawing up?” Narrowing his eyes, he reads, “A long term wage between you and Varric about…whether or not Cullen will suddenly get hot over the next decade? What?”

Isabela shrugs as though drawing up a contract regarding a bet spanning over the length of a decade wasn't that big of a deal. “He’s going to hit second puberty and then change into a magnificent stallion. Just watch. I can sense these things. Care to join in? I can draw up a draft for you too. This is a very complex bet with all sorts of levels and charts, see?”

Hawke does see. He sees the payout rates for each year’s progression and what types of external factors contribute to the change. There’s even fine print at the bottom clarifying terms and definitions. If Isabela ever decided to put this much effort into other things (like work), he suspects she’d be able to give Meredith a run for her money in terms of efficiency. “I think I’ll pass. What about me? What are my future hotness projections?”

She pauses from her work and looks him over a few times, brows furrowing in thought. “You…I’d take advantage of your boyish charms while you still can. I’m afraid you’ll be going down the homeless caveman path, sweetness,” Isabela teases.

“How can a caveman be homeless if his home is the wilderness?” he asks. “Also, am not!”

“Mmhmm,” Isabella hums dismissively.

He makes an affronted noise and leaves. “Why can’t I ever make any _normal_ friends?”

\--

Later that day, they’re in a departmental meeting with Orsino. It probably has something to do with Meredith and all of the ridiculous policies and budget cuts that she’s instated—the same ones that Hawke has every intention of ignoring. He’s gone ‘over budget’ for most of his projects so far, but they’ve always yielded results and he hasn’t been fired yet.

Meredith’s ideas are ridiculous and impossible anyway, which is exactly what Orsino is ranting about right now.

To the side, Merrill is drawing frowny faces in her notebook.

Frowning, Hawke elbows Anders who looks over and quickly shakes his head in a silent, “Don’t look at me. She’s your intern, not mine. You go talk to her.”

Being the adult that he is, Hawke reaches over and draws a frowny face on his friend’s papers.

Anders rolls his eyes and mouths, “Oh, real mature,” but then retaliates by drawing an unflattering picture of Hawke in his notebook with the caption “Homeless Caveman” under it.

They end up kicking each other under the table until Orsino finally notices and asks them to stop.

\--

At lunchtime, he finds Merrill sitting by herself at her desk, hunched over and quiet. With stacks of papers piled high around her like defensive fortifications, he doesn’t know how or why there’s so much paper on her desk when most of their work is done on the computer. When he gets close enough, he sees that she’s still drawing frowny faces in a variety of colours on the page in front of her.

Clearing his throat to announce his presence, he offers the chocolate bar he had bought just minutes earlier. “Chocolate?”

Merrill glances at it and sighs, letting the pen fall from her hand. “No, thank you.”

He arches a brow, unable to mask his surprise. “Are you sure? It’s _chocolate_.”

Putting the chocolate down and pushing over a stack of paper to make space, he takes a seat on the desk and asks, “Alright, what’s going on, Merrill? What’s wrong? You’ve been looking like this all week.”

She blinks and glances around, slightly reluctant. “What do you mean?”

“You look like someone ran over your little brother,” he says.

That gets a giggle out of her. “Most people would say ‘dog’ instead of ‘little brother’. Poor Carver.”

Hawke shrugs helplessly, careful not to knock over the tower of paper next to him. Smiling a little, he says, “Yes, well, I wouldn’t want to risk jinxing my sweet little puppy like that. Besides, I’m sure Carver understands and would do the same in my place. So are you going to tell me what’s got you all upset? You don’t have to, but if you want to then I’m all ears. Is it at least something I can help with? Is it me? Did I do something?”

Taking the chocolate, she breaks off a piece and heaves a sigh, slumping over her desk. “No, it’s not you, Hawke. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you worry.” Then her eyes widen. “Creators, I’ve caused everyone to worry about me, haven’t I? I didn’t even notice! Oh, I’m such a terrible person!”

He holds a hand up to stop her before she jumps to the inevitable conclusion that all of the world’s woes are her fault. “Calm down, Merrill. We’re worried, yes, but that doesn’t say anything about you as a person. That’s just what friends do, okay?”

Merrill nods, going from frantic back to sullen. She pops another piece of chocolate in her mouth. “My grandmother is coming for a visit in a couple of days.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” he asks slowly. “I thought you missed her.”

“I do! I even miss her scolding! But what will I have to show her when she gets here? My place is a mess. I haven’t done anything of significance here. Half my ideas are plagiarized and the other half are undoable. I’m a failure. This job clearly isn’t for me. Maybe my grandmother was right. Maybe I should’ve never left the clan,” Merrill sighs, tears welling up in her eyes.

Placing a hand on her head, he puts on his best big brother voice and says, “Hey, hey, stop that. You’re not a failure. We all feel like that sometimes, but that’s no reason to beat ourselves up over it. We already do it subconsciously; there’s no need to add to the damage.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m a failure,” Merrill cries, taking a bite directly from the chocolate bar.

He passes her a tissue and frowns. “What did I _just_ say? So what if none of your ideas have worked out yet? You’re only getting started. And you’re constantly trying to improve, aren’t you? None of us started out where we are now. Maker, it took me _years_ just to get my beard this magnificent.”

Merrill laughs and dries her tears on her sleeves. “So you meant for it to grow a little lopsided like that?”

Hawke immediately reaches up to feel his beard. “What? It’s lopsided? Really? Andraste’s—never mind that for now though.” He mentally makes a note to get Bethany to double checked later. “Look, Merrill, the fact that you left the Dalish for this internship is already a huge step that not many people would’ve been brave enough to take.

“Even if it turns out that this isn’t what you want to do in the future, you’ve been giving it your all since you started here, and that counts for a lot no matter what kind of job you’re doing. You fit in with us, don't you? And you even tamed that beast of a printer! Not even Anders knows how to use that one printer without having it spew smoke and ink at people. You are literally the only person who knows how to use it. That’s hardly the makings of a failure.”

“But what will I show my grandmother?” she asks, taking another bite of chocolate.

He shrugs. “Show her something you’re proud of. You’ve done a lot since you started your internship here, I’m sure it won’t be hard to think of something. You have a bright future ahead of you, no matter what path you choose. And if your grandmother doesn’t see it, though I doubt that’ll be the case, then you can tell her to come talk to me.”

Merrill smiles. “Thank you, Hawke.”

Ruffling her hair, he nods. “Any time, Merrill.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve eaten all of your chocolate even though I said I wouldn’t have any.”

“That’s fine. It was for you anyway.”

\--

That night after listening to Carver’s lecture on replying to text messages in a precise and timely manner, he gets Bethany to trim his beard. Then he calls their mother to have her reassure him that he won’t grow into a homeless caveman. “What are you talking about, dear? Your father aged very gracefully, and if you’re trying to say something about me then I won’t hesitate to go over and give you a piece of my mind.”

“That’s the last thing I was trying to do, mother.”

“Good. I suppose the worst thing that could happen to you is if you take after Gamlen…”

“Great, now I’m going to cry myself to sleep.”

Next to him, Honeypads barks reassuringly and gives him a big, wet kiss.

\--

“I assume you know what’s going on,” Fenris says. In the backseat, there are bowls and tubs of store-bought food, all haphazardly seat-belted in place because Fenris can’t or can’t be bothered to cook.

They’re carpooling to Merrill’s house for a potluck in Fenris’ car since Carver and Bethany, being the helpful angels they are, decided to go a little earlier to help set up. “I think I have a pretty good hunch,” Hawke answers easily.

Glancing over fleetingly, Fenris says, “They all look to you for guidance.”

Hawke blinks. “Who? You mean the guys? I don’t really understand why they think I’m the leader of this merry band of misfits. I suspect it’s probably my charming wit and dashing good looks.”

“Or maybe it’s your height,” Fenris suggests with a shrug.

“Less flattering, but that could be it,” Hawke agrees. “So if Aveline ever wore heels, she’d take over my position, then, or maybe Carver would make a better candidate?”

Fenris snorts at the idea.

He doesn’t know if Fenris is snorting at the idea of Aveline or Carver in heels, or either of them replacing him as the head honcho.

“What was wrong with your intern anyway?”

“She was feeling a little out of place and insecure,” Hawke explains. “It’s a feeling I’m quite familiar with, actually.”

Arching a brow, Fenris asks, “Really? I didn’t expect that from you.”

Hawke laughs. “I know I ooze confidence, but I’ve had my moments too. Did you know that I grew up on a farm? My family isn’t wealthy by any means, so right up until I moved out here, I was still wrangling druffalos and chasing chicken around. When I first moved to the city, I didn’t fit in anywhere. I was convinced I’d made a horrible mistake, and having dragged the twins out here with me somehow made things both better and worse.”

“Things worked out for you though.”

He nods in agreement, a wistful smile on his lips. “Yes, it didn’t happen right away, but things worked out eventually.”

“Thank you,” Fenris mutters, “for telling me. I didn’t ask and you didn’t have to say anything, but thank you for trusting me with this.”

Hawke grins and wraps an arm around the other’s shoulders. “Nonsense, you’re one of us now! Now that you’re in the know about my humble origins, you’ll never be allowed to leave our jolly little group.”

“I am surprisingly fine with that. I can think of worse places to be stuck in,” Fenris replies easily.

“Like Tevinter?”

“Like Tevinter.”

They park a little down the street from Merrill’s house and make their way over to where the others are already waiting.

Varric waves them over with a smile. “C’mon, you two are just in time.”

The door opens and Merrill excitedly waves them all inside where an older woman raises from her seat. “Grandmother, I’d like you to meet my friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plagarism is the blood magic of the business world.


	6. Dissent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because there ain't no dissatisfaction like job dissatisfaction.

“Hawke, bad news.”

He glances over at his friend and frowns. This isn’t what he wanted to hear. It’s never what he wants to hear. “That doesn’t bode well. Can you disguise it in the form of good news?”

Anders makes a face. “Do I have to?”

“Please? Indulge me? How hard could it be? We’re in marketing. It’s probably in our job description.”

“But I’m more specialized in market research. I can’t do what you do,” Anders protests.

Hawke makes his best puppy face, which has been dubbed as ‘surprisingly effective for a large, Hawke-sized adult man’ more than once. “Can’t you at least try?”

Rolling his eyes, Anders relents and says monotonically, “Fine. Guess who gets to spend some fun, quality time with upper management tomorrow at 1300 hours? We do. Hooray.”

He places a hand over his heart. “I think a piece of my soul just went to the Maker’s side.”

Anders doesn’t look remorseful in the least and takes a sip of coffee. “I tried to warn you. You should be careful of what you wish for.”

“I can’t believe you used to be a Grey Warden with my cousin,” Hawke mutters.

With a shrug, Anders points out, “To be fair, when I was there, they were taking in all sorts of people. There was that crazy, angry Dalish woman, that accountant who was the only survivor after her branch went bankrupt, and _Nathaniel_. Maker knows if Nathaniel can be a Warden then anyone can.”

Hawke laughs, having heard this particular complaint many times. “Yes, yes, how low the Wardens have fallen and all that.” Getting back to the subject at hand, he asks, “What do you suppose the meeting will be about tomorrow? What could be so important that Meredith has to come see us herself?”

“Budget cuts? Layoffs? Maybe she’ll announce her plan to turn all of us into telemarketers? All of the above? I could go on,” Anders jokes darkly.  

The last time they had a department meeting with the higher ups was a year ago. That was when Anders’ ex, Karl, and many others got demoted by Meredith due to departmental budget cuts and got thrown into a telemarketing position one floor down. The poor guy only lasted a week before he had to quit and leave to find something better.

Hawke still remembers the last conversation he overheard between the two before Karl quit. In all his time in Ferelden and Kirkwall, he’s never seen more haunted eyes.

_“I can’t stand it anymore, Anders. I just had a conversation with a man with nothing but pleasantries where I said, ‘You’re welcome.’ And he said, ‘Thank you.’ And I said, ‘Perfect.’ And then you know what he said? ‘You bet.’ How was that even a conversation? I…it’s like nothing has meaning anymore. My work, my words, none of it actually matters! I can’t do this anymore. When I look at you, I remember my old job up here and everything I lost. I used to care about my job, Anders, I used to **feel** . There’s no passion in telemarketing, no emotions, and I just…I need to go. Goodbye.” _

They broke up soon after, to no one’s surprise, and Anders was never quite the same after that.

Hawke groans. “Please don’t. I don’t know if my heart can handle it.”

Anders scoffs quietly. “All I know is it won’t be good news. It never is, but I guess we’ll find out the specifics tomorrow.”

They turn back to their work in silence, but thought of the meeting lingers.

And it _festers_.

\--

In the end, Hawke loses a perfectly good night’s worth of sleep over trying to picture the worst possible thing the meeting could be about. So far, Meredith announcing that she's secretly his biological mother and being made a telemarketer are at the top of his extensive list. He spends the morning lying in bed, in denial, until his first alarm (there for his more ambitious days where he’ll walk to work) finally goes off.

And then the second (which leaves him ample time to go through his morning routine).

And then his third (which leaves him _just_ enough time to rush through his routine).

And then his fourth (which means it’s too late and he’s doomed himself to reckless driving and tardiness).

Finally, he drags himself out of bed and goes through his morning routine with noticeable reluctance. When he gets to the kitchen, he finds Bethany and Carver there, sitting at the counter with the dog eyeing their breakfast. “Good morning. I thought you’d left already,” she says.

Hawke heaves a sigh and goes over to rest his head on her shoulder. “Please tell me I’m too sick to go to work today.”

Bethany reaches over and feels his forehead. “You feel fine, brother. Didn’t sleep well?” she asks while feeding him a spoonful of her cereal with genuine sympathy, in that way only Bethany could ever pull off.

Carver huffs, far less empathetic than his twin. “You were awake the whole time but you didn’t get up to walk the dog or anything?”

“But I was and still am tired! I can’t actually remember what it feels like to get a full night’s rest anymore,” he whines, chewing on the soggy pieces of wheat and sugar; Bethany is the only person he knows who likes to soak her cereal for a while before eating it. His tiredness might be a slight exaggeration considering how he slept until well into the afternoon just that weekend, but that feels like a whole lifetime ago. Heaving another sigh, he mutters, “I guess I’m off to work then.”

His cup of Boom does nothing for his mood or state of consciousness, even _with_ the two extra shots of espresso. Fenris’ visit in the morning is a pleasant surprise, but not even _that_ is enough to break him out of his foul mood.

“Your drink smells even more toxic than usual today,” Fenris notes.

Hawke grunts back, “This whole place smells more toxic than usual. Have you ever noticed that Kirkwall’s got this _smell_ to it? Like rat poison and a hint of sweat and rage. I hate it.” He pauses to reflect on his words. “ _Do_ I hate it? I don’t know. I don’t think I got any sleep last night. Or, maybe I did, but it feels like I dreamt it up, which wouldn’t be possible because you’d need to be, you know, _asleep_ to dream.”

Fenris merely watches him, his eyebrows arched in one part surprise and one part confusion.

With a sigh, he slouches over his desk and tries to log in.

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

He stares at his computer for a long moment, torn between crying and smashing the monitor. “Oh,” he says instead, a little tightly, “that’s why you’re here.”

“Are you alright, Hawke?”

“Probably not,” he mutters, typing the words out slowly.

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

Hawke blinks. “Wait, that wasn’t my hint, was it?”

Fenris crosses his arms. “No, it wasn’t, but that answers my question at least. The hint you sent me yesterday was ‘Who would’ve thought Gamlen had one?’”

“Self-respect? A life? A wife?” he tries, his mind muddled. Yesterday morning feels like eons ago, a brighter time with no sleep deprivation or meeting to worry about. “Wife…oh, right, Charade. I have a long lost cousin who isn’t a useless human being.”

“That’s…nice?” Fenris says, eyes glancing around in search of the correct response.

He glances up to see Fenris glancing around and immediately feels terrible. Not everyone has his talent for ignoring people’s grumpiness. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m just tired and whenever I think about that meeting with upper management later, it makes me want to break something—preferably my own hand so I can go home and sleep. If possible, I'd much rather find out about whatever evil plans Meredith has for us through the grapevine tomorrow.”

“Is the whole department like this today?” Fenris asks.

Hawke shrugs. “Angry and disoriented? Most likely. I haven’t talked to anyone yet. You’d probably have a nicer day not talking to us though. And also stay away from Anders and machinery. Last time we had something like this, he blew up the microwave. He claimed it was an accident but we all know better.”

Still looking bewildered, Fenris nods. “I’ll keep that in mind. I should get to work, but come by at lunch, Hawke, I have something to show you.”

“Well, who am I to turn down such a promising offer?” he manages to joke. “I’ll be there.”

\--

He adds, ‘Napping room for the sleep deprived’ and ‘Get rid of meetings with upper management or just upper management’ to his daily suggestions and makes his way over to the HR department. On his way there, he passes Merrill’s desk, still piled high with paper. Behind the towering stacks of paper, he finds her asleep at her desk. There are post-it notes framing her monitor and they all seem to say ‘Meeting at 1300’ with frowny faces on each one.

Hawke feels a little bad about how they scared Merrill with all the horror stories of past meetings with Meredith, but at least she has a healthy dose of dread for the upcoming meeting.

On the bulletin board, there’s a plethora of new posters promoting unionization, which can only be Anders’ work. Anders, who he still hasn’t seen as of yet. From his experience, a missing Anders is never a good thing—not from a friend point of view or a first-aid one.

Aveline arches a brow at the number of suggestions he throws into the box. “Feeling dissatisfied with the workplace today, Hawke?”

“No, unless you’re asking me if I was sorely tempted to ‘trip’ and fall on a knife so as to not have to come in today, then possibly. Does that count?”

“Maker, is it that bad?”

He snorts. “A meeting with Meredith? No, it’s an absolute delight and I can hardly wait.”

She looks at him for a long moment, and he recognizes it as her assessing the situation and deciding whether or not she should throw a printer at him for his attitude. Evidently, she decides against it (probably because then he’d get to go home and gloat) and sighs, “This isn’t your first meeting with Meredith.”

“That’s true. I’ve had the unfortunate displeasure of meeting her on multiple occasions, including that one time I saw her _outside of work_ ; and let me tell you: it’s every bit as horrifying as it sounds. _But_ , those weren’t _departmental_ meetings. Remember the last time that happened? Remember all the telemarketers that went downstairs and never returned? Because everyone in Marketing still does. There are _grudges_ , Aveline! How am I supposed to keep a whole department of people from attempting and possibly committing murder?” he protests. “Because some of us will definitely get closer than others when it comes to murder.”

There’s a pause as she considers his words. “Your discretion leaves a lot to be desired, but I’ll swing by towards the end of the meeting in case you need help restraining him.”

Hawke breathes a sigh of relief. “You’re a goddess, Aveline.”

“And you clearly need glasses, Hawke,” Isabela joins in, laughing. “That is no goddess! You are facing _Aveline_ , the mighty and wrathful god of order and justice!” Flexing her arms in demonstration, she continues, “Watch this redheaded war god go! With her burly arms, she’ll hurl policy offenders into the sun, a dozen at a time!”

“I’ll hurl _you_ into the sun!” Aveline snaps as the other woman runs off cackling. “Get back here!”

\--

Hawke finally bumps into Anders on his way back to his desk and immediately reassesses just how angry and tired he feels. “Sweet Maker, Anders, you look like you had even less sleep than me and I didn’t get any at all.”

Anders grunts and turns to look at Hawke, blinking slowly. His eyes are bloodshot and his beard looks particularly scraggly today. All in all, while Hawke knows he _looks_ like he’s lost a night’s worth of rest, somehow Anders looks like he’s lost a week’s worth.

“Ah, I see,” he says without waiting for a coherent reply. “We’ll continue this later then. Good talk.”

With no reply still, Hawke nods to himself again and instead of heading back to his desk, he turns around and starts walking the other way towards Varric’s office. Snuggly situated right between Accounting and PR, he steps in without knocking. Varric looks up from his desk, unperturbed as always and waves. “Hawke, come on in! I like that look on your face. That’s the face of someone I’m going to tell a story to others about. What can I do for you today?”

Distracted by Varric’s words, he takes a moment to glances at his reflection in the glass. He examines his face, arching his eyebrows one at a time and doesn’t find anything particularly story-worthy—only eye bags and stress. “Right, anyway, I have some good news and some bad news,” Hawke starts.

Varric’s eyebrow goes up. “Alright, let’s start with the good news.”

He shakes his head. “No can do. There is no good news. The good news is a lie and everything is terrible today because we're probably all getting demoted and then you'll find me devoid of life and emotion, sitting in front of a phone and talking in non sequitur sentences.”

“Well, that was cheery,” Varric mutters. “Not looking forward to the meeting, I take it? Is this about Blondie?”

“A good chunk of it, I’d say. I just ran into him and I don’t think he’s actually conscious at the moment, but that just means he’s being fuelled by pure rage. Murder will be afoot, Varric,” he announces dramatically.

His friend laughs and leans forward. “Is that right? And how inclined are you to stop it?”

Hawke shrugs. “Only about 51%. Maybe a little less. Depends on what the meeting will be about, you know?”

“And there’s the story in the making. Did you come here looking for motivation to stop the murder?” Varric asks. “Because you know you’re barking up the wrong tree for that, my friend. Not after Meredith cancelled the monthly outing to the pub last time.”

“No, you’re nowhere near high enough to be a motivation tree,” he replies instinctively, his sleep deprivation leaving his filter next to non-existent.

Varric clutches at his heart. “Going for the height jokes already? You really _are_ at a low today.”

“Any lower and I might be mistaken for your brother,” Hawke grumbles without thinking. Then he realizes what he said and covers his face in shame. “Don’t look at me. I’m not myself today. My comebacks are usually much better than this, you know that. I'm just tired and angry. And I’m sorry, I couldn’t pass as your brother in a million years.”

With a snort, Varric agrees, “You’re right. You’re nowhere near good looking enough to be related to me—not that Bartrand had any luck in the looks department. So if you didn’t come here for motivation, why _are_ you here?”

He shakes his head. “Not sure anymore. I think I was just avoiding Anders before he lowers my 51% any further. If he starts crying, I’ll end up at 49% and then we’ll all be out of a job by the end of the day. Oh, and Fenris invited me to the IT room for lunch. That sounds promising, doesn’t it?” he asks, his mouth still on autopilot and clearly aiming to make today the single worst day of his life.

Arching a brow with interest, Varric leans forward. “Oh? Do tell. What are you expecting?”

A shrug. “I don’t know. The two things I want most from him are acknowledgment of my romantic inclinations towards him or sleep. At this point, I’ll settle for either. I’d prefer both, but I’ll settle for either. What are the chances of any of that happening?”

“Given your filter today, Hawke, I’d say anything’s possible.” But then Varric adds, “But also given your filter and general luck, you’re more likely to say something amazingly and irreparably awkward and run away with your tail tucked between your legs.”

Hawke scowls. “You didn’t have to _jinx_ it like that.”

Varric chuckles, “Hey, payback’s a bitch. Just make sure you tell me all about it after.”

\--

Not a word is exchanged between him and Anders. This is mostly because they both spent most of their time sitting at their desks and sleeping with their eyes opened (and also occasionally closed). When lunch time hits, Hawke gets up and drags his feet over to the IT room and waits to be buzzed in. The door clicks and he pushes his way inside. Throwing his arms wide, he announces, “Here I am, Fenris. Feel free to have your wicked way with me.”

“What? Oh, good, you’re here.” Fenris looks over from his workstation with an unreadable look. He pushes his chair back and stands up, making a beeline towards Hawke.

Suddenly unsure but very curious, Hawke allows Fenris to lead him towards the back of the room where boxes of electronics are stacked up. His heart pounds just a little harder when they reach the back, exposing a small, empty area behind the boxes.

“This is the only part of the office that’s not monitored,” Fenris explains. “It’s where the guards normally play Diamondback.”

Everything clicks in his head. “I always wondered where you went off to during lunch sometimes.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t exactly want to make this common knowledge. It should be acceptably clean. Feel free to take a nap here. I’ll wake you when your break is over.”

In the back of his mind, a voice tells him he shouldn’t have said anything about settling for one or the other to Varric earlier. But the promise of sleep is still far too enticing to turn down. “You’re a saint, Fenris, and if I start crying, please tell everyone it was from yawning too hard. Or you can say it was from your benevolence, I suppose I wouldn’t mind that too much,” he says, lowering himself to the ground.

“Here, you can use this as a pillow,” Fenris says, grabbing his jacket from the chair and tossing it over.

“You are my favourite person in this place and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” he mumbles happily, rolling the jacket up into a ball; the sheer contentment he feels goes all the way down to his stomach and warms him from the inside out.

Fenris crouches down next to him. “You’re sounding better already.”

Hawke laughs. “Happy enough to cry. Who knows? After this nap, I might even be well enough to go to face Meredith at the meeting.”

He lies down and is out cold within seconds.

\--

It feels like a month has passed before someone finally shakes him awake. Or tries to. He rolls to his side and pulls his pillow a little closer, curling up and grumbling, “No, not now, boy. Go play with Carver or something.”

_“I am not your dog, Hawke.”_

Strange. The last he checked, as brilliant as his dog is, human speech was still beyond him. He lets out of a string of unintelligible noises. His pillow smells vaguely of spices and his bed feels harder than usual. Pulling his blanket closer, he finds that it’s not a blanket at all—too warm and fleshy—and reluctantly opens his eyes. “Hngh?”

He finds Fenris sitting next to him, looking amused and exasperated. “Hello, Hawke. I see you’re finally up. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, Maker, I could kiss you,” he mumbles gratefully.

Fenris blinks. He could be blushing, but it’s impossible to tell with the lighting.

The two of them pause and sheepishly avoid eye contact.

“I slept like a baby. Even dreamt about finding a rare bottle of Antivan brandy on a cave spider’s corpse. I don’t know why it had it, but you always find the strangest things on cave spider corpses,” Hawke eventually says, sitting up and rubbing his face with his free hand. “I hope you weren’t stuck here the whole time, watching me drool.”

“Well,” Fenris starts.

Hawke follows his gaze down to his hand, still clutching onto his non-blanket—his hand shaped non-blanket. With a start, he lets go of the other’s hand and apologizes, “I am so sorry, Fenris. You didn’t have to stay here—I, you should’ve just pulled away or woken me up. I wouldn’t have minded. Carver sometimes says I sleep like a grabby infant, which, as you can see, is not entirely wrong. Maker’s breath, I can’t believe I wasted your break like that—”

“ _Hawke_ ,” Fenris says, stopping him mid-rant. “It’s alright. I don’t mind. I was just on my phone.”

He gets up, keeping his head lowered, his brain filled with a mixture of guilt, embarrassment, and…excitement? “Right, then. Thank you for the nap,” he says courteously, keeping his eyes on his legs, “and for lending me your hand. Like I’ve said before, it’s a top class hand-holding hand.”

Fenris shrugs and turns his head towards the clock. “Anytime, but you should probably get ready for your meeting soon, you only have 15 minutes before it starts and your hair is a mess and you’ve got dried drool in your beard.”

If Hawke listens carefully, he’s almost certain he can hear a smile in the other’s voice. With a sudden surge of boldness, he grins. “You think I’m adorable.”

A chuckle. “For a large, Hawke-sized man, perhaps. I suppose I can see the appeal.”

Just as quickly as it came, his boldness leaves and he can feel his ears heating up. He decides that he must still be dreaming because there’s no way that this is happening, and if there’s no way that this is happening, then maybe the meeting isn’t a thing either. “Pinch me.”

“What?”

“Pinch me—ow! Blast! Still have that meeting to go to then,” Hawke grumbles, then he gives a start of realization. “Andraste’s flaming best friend, I forgot about Anders. I guess I have to go stop a catastrophe now. Thanks again for the nap!”

\--

He finds Anders walking towards the boardroom and cuts him off. Feeling recharged from his nap, he’s _almost_ confident that this won’t blow up in his face. “Anders, whatever you’re planning, no. I know you haven’t forgiven Meredith for the whole Karl thing, but stop. It’s not worth it.”

Anders narrows his eyes. “You have drool marks on your face, and you don’t even know what I’m planning.”

“I know it’s nothing good,” he retorts because that was the best he could come up with while preoccupied with rubbing his face with his sleeve. “Last time it involved explosions, this time is probably going to be murder—of the career kind, just to clarify.”

Crossing his arms, the other scowls. “Something’s gotta give, Hawke, even you must see that. I won’t just sit around and let her turn us all into telemarketers! You know she’d jump at the chance to do it. I have to do _something_!”

Hawke shakes his head. “Not like this. We don't even know what the meeting’s about yet. Besides, the upper management will eventually _literally_ throw each other out the window, why can’t you just let nature run its course, Anders? Please don’t make me stop you with force. I _always_ get yelled at when I tackle people in the hallway.”

“You cannot care for me and despise what I stand for,” Anders hisses.

He furrows his brows. “Um, except, yes, I can. That’s what friends do—all the time, I might add. Also, huge exaggeration there. I am against less than 10% of what you stand for, and it’s mostly the whole murdery bit. Unless you’re all about murder? Are you all about murder, Anders?”

“Of course not!”

“Really, you could’ve fooled me. Also, let me just take this moment to say that I’m about dogs. I’m all about dogs. Big dogs, small dogs, any size in between. All coats, no coat, girls, boys, puppies, old puppies, doesn’t matter. I love dogs. You’re a cat person, Anders, and on multiple occasions, you’ve expressed extreme distaste for dogs. You can’t possibly care about me when you hate dogs.”

Hawke crosses his arms and waits to see if his angry and extremely sleep deprived friend will take the very obvious bait.

Anders furrows his brows and frowns. “No, that is the dumbest thing I have _ever_ heard. This is completely different! You are separate from your irrational love for dogs. I express concern for you because I’m worried about your wellbeing, and just because I didn’t like certain dogs in no way indicates I hate all of them and disapprove of your general life choices to the point where—oh, very cute.” He crosses his arms. “I just lectured myself for you. Great. I really don’t like it when you’re being clever.”

“People generally don’t,” he says with a shrug. “Can’t imagine why. But have I at least convinced you that I’m not here to friend-break up with you for talking you out of _murder_? You’ve already been a Grey Warden, there’s no need for you to try out being a Crow as well.”

“Fine. No career murder. What's _your_ great idea then?”

He rolls his eyes. “Oh, I was planning on asking her politely if she wouldn’t mind getting back into whatever sarcophagus she crawled out of as she clearly has an overdue appointment with death, then we would leave a strongly worded note asking her to please not come back again.”

Anders starts tapping his foot expectantly.

“You’re no fun today. What we’re going to do is go to that meeting and sit through every excruciating minute of it, and then decide what action is necessary afterwards. If she’s going to turn all of us into telemarketers then I will make my debut as a Crow and  _help_ you commit career murder,” Hawke says. “Does that sound fair?”

“Fine, you win this time,” Anders agrees reluctantly. He massages his temple and sighs, “The sooner I get through this, the sooner I can go home and sleep. C’mon, let’s go.”

“Yeah, that’d probably be a good idea—because we’re already late.”

The two exchange glances and take off towards the boardroom.

\--

“I see the last of you stragglers have finally found your way here,” they’re greeted by Meredith at the door.

“Yes, it won’t happen again,” Hawke mutters. Then under his breath, he adds, “Just like meetings with you, hopefully.”

He gets a light warning nudge from Cullen, who’s stuck sitting through the meeting as well and looks equally displeased about it. As far as he can tell, it’s a neutral nudge, just a friendly reminder that Meredith once doubled the surveillance cameras around the office because someone left her a note saying, ‘Meredith’s a looney.’

Hawke huffs and studies the man a little closer, mumbling, “Varric’s definitely going to win that bet. I doubt you’ll become _that_ good looking.”

“What…?” Cullen shoots him a confused glance but Hawke merely shrugs and pretends to pay attention to the meeting.

\--

By the time Aveline shows up (and Varric and Isabela too to watch), the meeting’s coming to a wrap and just about everyone in the room is struggling to stay awake. Meredith had gone over the department’s financials, how all of their projects went over budget, argued with Orsino, and other things Hawke’s brain tuned out.

“…we were discussing ways to promote Kirkwall without throwing the budget any more out of balance and I have decided to allow you to start a social media account for the company.”

Hawke perks up and grins excitedly at the news, he looks over at Anders who returns the eye contact and mouths, “That’s it? All this was to announce we’re getting into social media? I can’t believe I lost sleep over this meeting.”

Next to him, Cullen looks just as put out, shaking his head and muttering, “Maker, I have a thousand other things I could be doing right now.”

Outside, Varric and Isabela are already making bets to see how long Marketing will have control of the account before Meredith decides that they can’t handle the responsibility and takes it away.

As everyone leaves the room, Hawke wraps an arm around Anders’ shoulders. “Aren’t you glad I talked you out of _murder_? This would’ve been a silly thing to _murder_ someone over, right?”

Anders scowls. “I get it already, so can you stop gloating now, Hawke?”

He grins. “Not yet. Hey, look up.”

With a glare, Anders looks up. “Wha—?”

Hawke snaps a selfie and announces, “This will be our first post! I think I’ll caption it ‘Happy times at Kirkwall’, or ‘Not telemarketers yet!’ or maybe, ‘11 days since our last murder’.”

Anders makes a grab at the phone and misses. “You’re gonna want to make that zero because never mind Meredith, if you don’t delete that picture I’m going to murder _you_ and stick your head on a pike once I’m done, Hawke.”

\--

Watching the two run down the halls with Hawke documenting the whole chase on his phone, Isabela says thoughtfully, “A week.”

Aveline scoffs. “Really? At the rate they’re going, I’d say it’ll be gone by tomorrow.”

“Nah,” Varric says, crossing his arms, “Meredith has more patience than that. I’m betting a month. C’mon, let’s go see if Daisy and Broody want in on this bet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fenris bet 2 weeks while Merrill said, "But everyone's having so much fun! I doubt Meredith will take it away from us."
> 
> Extra:  
> In the end, Meredith's patience only lasts 2 weeks, but instead of shutting it down she gives it to Merrill (and bans anyone else (mainly Hawke, Anders, and Isabela) from posting anything).
> 
> Winner of the bet:  
> Merrill


	7. Bait and Switch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all you readers and a huge shout out to [ ling](http://liiiiiiing.tumblr.com/) for alpha-ing this! Hope you had fun reading this!

“Here’s a fun one. Professional Pleasure Provider: Come four times and get the fifth time free.”

Isabela leans over and takes a closer look before wrinkling her nose in disapproval. “Oh, I wouldn’t go to her. She’s rubbish. You’d be lucky to come even once with that one.”

Hawke’s sitting by Isabella’s desk, eating chocolate and reading classified ‘ads’ in the local newspaper aloud to one another because Meredith’s away for a conference and it’s been a slow day (she’s probably still watching them remotely, but they like to fool themselves into thinking she’s too busy for that). Looking around the office, no one else seems to be doing anything productive with their free time—even Aveline’s taking it easy and chatting with the guards at her desk.

“You’ve said that for an alarming number of these already,” he complains, crossing out the ad with a red pen.

“I can’t help it if you pick all the bad ones, Hawke,” Isabela returns. “Three pages to choose from and you went and chose the ‘professional pleasure provider’.”

“Alliterations are attention grabbers, I couldn’t help it.”

She nods, unconvinced. “Uh huh, what about ‘Mr. Baldnutz’ with the ‘clean shaven and massive jock’?”

Snorting, he tries his best to keep a straight face as he says, “Yes, well, you dashed my dreams with that one. Wait, doesn’t that one only service male clientele?”

Isabela smirks and leans back in her chair. “Maybe I had a male clientele with me and we visited him together. I’m disappointed you even had to ask.”

That’s when the fire alarm suddenly goes off. It’s not a drill or Aveline would’ve mentioned it earlier, and Meredith is _never_ absent for fire drills. Also, there usually isn’t the smell of smoke and burnt toner in the air during a drill. They exchange glances and follow the others out the building.

“How upset do you think Meredith would be if the building burnt down while she’s away?” Hawke asks casually as they make their way down the hall. It may not be a drill, but he’s been through (and been the cause of) too many non-drills to panic.

Isabela pretends to entertain the question with a hum. “I’d say she’d probably be _quite_ upset.”

He nods and pretends to consider her answer. “Quite, hmm? I was leaning more towards ‘very’.”

“You could be right about that, sweetness. How many days do you think we’ll get off if Kirkwall goes down in flames?” she asks as they wind their way down the emergency exit stairs.

Hawke shrugs. “According to Aveline, we’ll probably get a day if we’re lucky, and two hours if we’re not.”

With a laugh, Isabela says, “That’d work for me. Two hours is more than enough for a quick trip to the Rose.”

Instead of waiting outside on the sidewalk with the rest of the company though, they duck into Bodahn’s where the rest of the group are waiting.

Because Bodahn’s will stay open rain or shine, fire or flood, blight or war, etc.

Taking this opportunity, Hawke saunters up to the counter to order another Boom just as Fenris and Anders meander in, already bickering.

“I seem to recall you saying something a while ago…” Fenris says, his arms crossed.

Anders scowls, clenching his fists tight. “Shut up.”

“‘ _I can control it_ ,’” Fenris mimics. “Isn’t that what you said?”

“So help me…”

“There’s a reason no one’s allowed to use that printer,” Fenris seethes.

Isabela suddenly comes up behind him and sighs, “That solves that mystery, I suppose. Ugh, I need a stiff one and a drink.”

Hawke snorts. “You’re out of luck on both accounts, I’m afraid.”

“And you underestimate me on both accounts,” she returns with a wink. “But I’ll refrain since it’s technically still work hours. I’ll just have to wait until lunch. I’m such a saint.”

When he brings his drink back to the table, Aveline has banished the arguing pair to opposite sides of the table and Varric waves him over. There are empty cups set up around the table and Varric tells him, “Don’t start drinking that yet, Hawke. We need it for our game.”

Taking a seat next to Varric, he sets his Boom down and asks, “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Varric? Remember what happened to Carver? And that was just a sip.”

“C’mon, games aren’t fun unless you throw in a little risk,” Varric replies easily.

Hawke shrugs. “Alright, it’s no sweat off my back if I lose then.”

“Actually,” Isabella says, returning to the table with a cup in her hands, “this cup’s for you. Decaf.”

“You’re monsters,” Hawke whispers, eyes narrowed in disdain at the cup placed in front of him.

“What’s going on?” Fenris asks, already frowning in suspicion.

Varric leans forward with a grin. “Right, this is your first fire drill. We’re playing _Never Have I Ever_ except with non-alcoholic drinks. Last time, Daisy was going through a healthy and vegan protein shake phase so we used that, and this time it’ll be with Hawke’s toxic mud water.”

Rolling his eyes, he mutters, “The only toxic mud water around here is this decaf coffee.”

“The shakes weren’t _that_ bad,” Anders says. “Once you got past the sourness and bitterness, there was that sweet, tangy stuff.”

“Oh, those were a special ingredient from the clan,” Merrill says excitedly. “Do you want to know what was in it? I can tell you if you’d like.”

Hawke tries to throw Anders a discreet head shake, but Anders either missed it or ignored him. “Sure as long as you’re not going to tell me there was halla cheese in it or something.”

Merrill laughs. “No, we wouldn’t use halla cheese for that. You’d probably be able to smell it anyway. It was mostly squash, elfroot leaves, fresh mushroom, a deep mushroom, some wildflowers, and that sweet tangy bit…”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Anders says, sounding pleasantly surprised.

“…which is actually the larvae of this wood-burrowing beetle. I’m surprised you liked it, actually,” Merrill finishes, watching them gag. “Oh dear, was it something I said?”

Hawke shakes his head, banishing all memories of the protein shake from his thoughts. “No, this is on Anders for asking, not you. I can’t wait to tell Carver about this later.”

Clearing his throat, Varric tries to get the group back under control. “All I can say is at least we know what we’re drinking this time. We may not know just how many shots of espresso there are in that cup, but we know it’s some form of coffee. And it’s from Bodahn’s, so it must be safe. Let’s play, and remember to throw in a couple of clean ones for Daisy,” he says, shooting Isabela a look.

Isabela huffs. “Hey, I’ll have you know that I know how to play clean, but if you want clean, you should probably ask Aveline, the celibate queen until very recently.”

“Oh, ha ha, laugh it up, whore,” Aveline grumbles. “Fine. I’ll start. Never have I ever stolen office supplies.”

Everyone else except Fenris drinks, gagging at the taste of their drink. “Maker’s breath, I doubt I’ll be getting any sleep tonight. Good thing it isn’t a drink for every item we’ve taken or we’d drink Bodahn out of business,” Isabela says.

“I knew I shouldn’t have taken that pen,” Merrill mutters to herself, her eyes furrowed in concern. “Is anyone seeing all these smells, or is it just me?”

Varric reaches out and takes her cup. “I think we should probably water down yours a little, Daisy.”

“Wait, you’ve never taken office supplies, Fenris?” Hawke asks. “Not even a pen?”

Fenris shakes his head. “No, because I’m pretty sure Meredith keeps track of everything and deducts it from your cheques. Besides, all my work is on the computer.”

Aveline arches a brow. “It’s true, but that’s still pretty amazing, Fenris. I’m pretty sure if you give Hawke or Isabela a pat down, you’d find no less than 15 items from the office on their person at any given time.”

“Hey, that’s,” he protests, digging through his pockets only to find it full of pens and sticky notes and paperclips, “probably not true. Or, I don’t think there’s 15…no, wait, there’s another highlighter. Never mind. Isabela?”

“I was hoping for a pat down,” she replies with an easy grin.

Without hesitation, he reaches into her pocket and retrieves a handful of items both office related and not. Sorting through the things, Hawke mumbles, “That’s 13 and I watched you pull a pen and a small notepad from your bra this morning, so you definitely have at least 15.”

Isabela pouts. “Spoil sport. Fine, I’ll go next then. Never have I ever made out in the _nook_ in the IT room _._ ”

“How did—that was _one time_!” Aveline protests, slamming her hands on the table and taking a shot of Boom.

Hawke makes a face. “Aww, Aveline, I _slept_ there!”

Outside, a fire truck approaches from the distance as Aveline rolls her eyes at him with a level of ‘don’t you even’ he has never experienced before. “Oh, that’s _rich_ coming from the guy who ate a slice of cheese that fell on the table in the Hanged Man.”

“How are you not dead, Hawke? Do you know what kinds of things happen on those tables? They may get wiped down at the end of the night, but nothing short of setting fire to them will get them _clean_.” Anders says. “Have you seen a doctor? You could _not_ have gotten out of that unscathed.”

“I’m fine, Anders. Maker, why does it always come back to me?” he asks incredulously. “Okay, my turn. Never have I ever…”

The game goes on without further (major) incidents except the occasional pause to admire the firefighters running into the building, which sparks an argument about which of them would be the most welcomed sight in case of an emergency. Then after getting through that, Varric decides to throw in, “Never have I ever had a threesome with Isabela.”

Isabela immediately drinks and waves off all the looks they give her. “What? I once met a lovely girl by the name of Isabela and we hit it off and got it on.”

More reluctantly, Hawke, Anders, and Fenris all take a drink from their cups only to stare at each other, bug-eyed. “This is the last thing I want to have in common with you,” Fenris complains.

Anders scowls. “Oh, like _I’m_ jumping for joy here.”

Hawke merely sits there, his jaw agape. His brain refuses to comprehend the information being presented to it. Anders, he’s not too surprised about given his colourful past, but _Fenris_?

As though reading his mind, Fenris turns to him and the two of them stare at one another for a long moment as he tries to figure out what he’s feeling about the whole situation and what that look in the other’s eyes is supposed to convey. Is it disbelief? Shame? Disdain? Hurt? Jealousy?

 _Guilt_?

Meanwhile, the rest of the group all turn to Isabela, who shrugs. “It was all good fun. And to be fair, it was before we became friends—except you, Hawke.”

“Never ask for surprises at the Pearl. I can’t believe we all had to pay for that night,” Anders mumbles. “You were a redhead back then, weren’t you? And you were talking about Warden endurance I think?”

“Oh, yes, with the Hero of Ferelden and her trusty Alistair,” Isabela says with a purr. “That was a _very_ good night.”

Snapping out of the stare down, he can’t hide the horror in his voice as he turns to her. “My _cousin_ too!?”

Isabela rolls her eyes. “Well, I didn’t know you were cousins back then. If I’d known, I would’ve given you a head’s up or something.”

“She would’ve gloated,” Aveline corrects her. “Hell, she probably would’ve used it as her opening line when the two of you first met.”

With a laugh, Isabela agrees, “You know me so well. I would’ve shaken his hand and said, ‘Boy, won’t you be surprised to know where this hand has been.’”

Hawke looks up at the ceiling in a silent prayer for help. “Did not need that. Just don’t make it a personal goal to conquer the family, okay?” Just then, his phone buzzes and he reaches down to read the message. “Sorry, guys, looks like I have to cut this short. Bethany’s not feeling well.”

“Do you want me to—?” Isabela begins to tease.

“Not my baby sister you don’t!” he cuts in. But then he thinks better of it and remembers how the twins are constantly telling him that they're old enough to make their own decisions and corrects himself, “Or, if you do, promise me you’ll at least shake her hand and tell her where it’s been because _I’m_ not having that talk with her.”

With a laugh, she nods in agreement. “Promise. So we’re good, right?”

“Well, I’m not being chased by the Arishok or anything right now, so we’re great,” Hawke teases back.

Rolling her eyes, Isabela huffs, “You get your hands on a Qunari manual _one time_.”

He grins and waves to the rest of the group as he gropes around in his pocket for his car keys. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

The rest of the group wave back and go back to their game.

\--

Hawke ends up contracting whatever Bethany has when she decides to cough in his face for a greeting, and the two of them spend the next few days curled up on the couch with the dog and playing video games—and occasionally crying because,

“He died singing his patter song, brother! Why didn’t they let him finish his patter song!? Why did he have to die!?” Bethany sobs into his shoulder.

“Hey, lunch is ready—” Carver steps into the room and pauses. Eyes narrowing, he asks, “Do I even want to know?”

They both turn to him and blubbering incoherently. Suddenly, Hawke grabs Bethany by the arm. “We’re replaying that part after lunch.”

“What? But why—ah.” They exchange looks and turn to Carver and smile.

Carver takes a step back and frowns. “You do realize I’m the one who stayed home to take care of you sickies, right?”

“Of course, and we love you for it, but sadness is a family affair today,” Hawke says in between bouts of coughing and sniffling. “C’mon, let’s go eat before the food gets cold.”

The three of them head over to the kitchen when Bethany asks, “What’s your favourite ice cream flavour, brother?”

“Halla Tracks? Why? Are we getting some? Great Bear Claw’s pretty good too.”

“I don’t know,” she replies, typing away on her phone.

He’s about to ask her more but gets interrupted by a sudden, random thought. “Oh, by the way, Carver, wait till you hear about what I found out about those protein shakes Merrill liked so much.”

No doubt expecting the worst, Carver warns, “Brother…”

“You’re right,” he says complacently. “I’ll wait until we finish eating.”

After lunch and the unappetizing revelation, they drag Carver to the couch and replay the mission. At the end of it, Carver’s slumped against Hawke with his arms crossed and tears streaming down his face. “You guys are assholes. Why didn’t they let him finish his song?”

\--

By the time Monday rolls around, Hawke’s mostly better again and he shows up to work with only the softest of sniffles. The false alarm seems to have gone over well with Meredith, but she’s always been surprisingly lenient when it comes to people potentially but ultimately _not_ burning the building down. There’s a certain printer missing from the printing room, but other than that, nothing else seems to be out of place.

On the way in, he passes Merrill and asks, “Andraste’s knickers, did you get _any_ sleep at all?”

She smiles weakly at him. “Good morning, Hawke. I’m glad you’re sounding better. I think I managed an hour in the wee hours yesterday? Or maybe it was this morning. I was asking Carver what he did the last time he drank your coffee and he said he went running a lot, so I might try that. He even offered to keep me company, your brother’s so nice, Hawke.”

Hawke returns the smile and doesn’t mention that Carver’s runs usually took place in the early morning, and before that, he would walk into Hawke’s room and shake him awake out of spite before taking the dog and leaving.

“We’re having a contest to see whose sleeping schedule will return back to normal first,” Merrill tells him. “I sure hope I win.”

Hawke asks, “What’s the prize?”

“A full night’s worth of sleep,” she answers as if nothing could be more obvious.

Judging by the text messages he had received from the others over the weekend, no one else fared any better.

There was Varric’s ‘ _I couldn’t sleep so I wrote a book. I think I might start a series if this continues.’_

And then Isabela’s selfie in front of a door with her name painted on it along with the caption: _‘So I’ve been banned from the Rose for a week to “give their employees a break”. BUT I did get a room named after me so it’s still a win.’_

And Aveline’s _‘I’ve finished organizing all of the guard rotations. For the year.’_

He makes a mental note to go see Varric on his way to HR for his daily suggestions to place bets on the ongoing contest.

Arriving at his desk with his cup of Boom, he sits down, ready to begin his week—but not before looking over at Anders, who sent him a very incoherent drunk text last night, which meant he went to the Hanged Man and tried to counteract the Boom with alcohol and _maybe_ passed out. Deciding to test his luck, he asks, “So are you hungover and just tired?”

Eyes slanting open and glaring, Anders replies, “ _Both_. You stay away from me, you. Maker, if I get even a waft of your blighted drink, so help me, I will throw up on you.”

“Mmhmm,” he hums, taking a sip of his Boom.

“And on that picture of your dog.”

“Duly noted and you have my sincerest apology, Serah Anders,” Hawke says, obediently placing his drink on the other side of his keyboard, well away from the other. It doesn’t stop Anders from glaring at him or his drink though, and a moment later, he gets up and leaves, muttering something about getting painkillers and a new notebook  and editing his manifesto and getting away from ‘that demon fluid’.

Hawke’s tempted to shout out something about failing at marketing, but he’s pretty sure Anders will make good on his threat, so he keeps his mouth closed and tries to log in.

_HAllaTrack$ <3_

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

Disgruntled at having his morning disrupted so soon, he furrows his brows and sniffles and tries again.

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

Then he looks at the calendar and sees that another month had come and gone without notice. Resting his head on his desk, he tries to remember what question he’d sent to Fenris this time. The only notable thing that happened this month was helping his cousin move and seeing Alistair’s _everything._ The man was half way up the stairs carrying a stack of boxes when his overly loose sweatpants gave in to gravity’s unrelenting will.

“Don’t mind him. I’ve always wanted a staircase ornament,” his cousin had said while their dogs ran circles around the poor man.

Sometimes, he has a hard time reminding himself that they’re the ones who fished Ferelden out of bankruptcy.

_Al1sta1RsBuTT???_

He could already tell that it was wrong, but it was worth a try.

_Username or password incorrect. Please try again._

“Of course it’s not Alistair’s butt. Why would it be Alistair’s butt? Why did I even think it’d be Alistair’s butt?” he quietly chides himself.

“What’s this about whose what now?”

Hawke whirls around in his chair to see Fenris standing there, weary and confused. “Nothing, just poor timing—or maybe it’s _excellent_ timing because I was trying to guess my password. And may I say you look really good? For someone who looks like they’re about to join the Maker’s side, I mean.”

That gets an amused huff out Fenris as he scrubs his face and runs a hand through his mussed hair tiredly. The tiny action is enough to have Hawke transfixed, and try as he may, he can’t help but stare at the tattoos and the strands of hair falling back into place. “That’s what happens when you go 72 hours without sleep.”

“You still look really good though. Or, definitely look better than me after that one night…or that other one,” he adds as his mind brings up memory after memory. Waving it off, he cuts his train of thought short and says, “I assume I shouldn’t offer you a coffee?”

Fenris glances at his cup and wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. “No, definitely not. I don’t know how you can stand to drink that every day.”

He scoffs and gives a half shrug. “At least you’re not calling it ‘demon fluid’ like Anders did. Were your last few days as productive as Varric’s and arguably Isabela’s?”

“Isabela? Oh, yes, I got her selfie too. She certainly knows how to pass her waking hours.”

At the mention of Isabela, the two of them share a long second of awkward silence and averted gazes. It shouldn’t matter. They’re all consenting adults. He had no issues around Anders, or Isabela, or even his cousin after the game, but Fenris? The thought sends his mind reeling, and somehow, he suspects that “ _Hah, so how about those shared experiences?_ ” won’t work as a particularly effective ice-breaker in this case.

Instead, he clears his throat and looks around for a distraction, finding it in the other’s hand. “So what’s that paper you’ve got there?”

Fenris looks down at the sheet of paper in his hand blankly for a moment. Blinking out of his moment of stupor, he puts the page down and says, “Right. It’s the hint for your password.”

Pleased for a change in topic, he spreads his arms. “Alright, lay it on me because I don’t remember it at all.”

“It’s…your romantic interest.”

He blinks. “You?”

Fenris gives a start. “What?”

Equally taken aback and confused, he asks, “Wait, what?”

They stare at each other, wide-eyed and speechless.

“I…I should go…do work,” Fenris manages to get out, backpedaling away.

Although his voice fails him, Hawke’s hands reach out for the figure retreating around the corner. He can feel the dread coursing through his veins as he whispers in horror, “What have I done?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific, Hawke. You’ve done a lot of things,” Anders replies, returning to his seat.

“Excuse you, things and people,” he grumbles, trying his best not to slam his head into his desk.

Anders scoffs. “Not as many as Isabela though.”

“Heyyy,” he says, rolling his chair over to fist bump Anders on Isabela’s behalf, albeit miserably. Shuffling back to his spot in front of his screen, he frowns. “I still don’t know my password.”

Scratching his head, he ponders ways to ask for his password to be reset without coming into direct contact with or so much as talking to Fenris. He doubts the other man would want to see him so soon after the incident. “Maybe I can email him. Right. Need to log in for that.” Sniffling, Hawke glances over at the piece of paper Fenris left behind and sees multiple emails printed on the page all with the subject line ‘ _RE: Password Hint’_.

_16 Guardian, 9:35_

_RE: Password Hint_

 

_Who is my favourite friend?_

 

_\--_

_16 Guardian, 9:35_

_RE: Password Hint_

 

_HAHAHAHAHA DISREGARD THAT LAST EMAIL_

_And ask me about my favourite position._

 

_\--_

_16 Guardian, 9:35_

_RE: Password Hint_

 

_I change my mind._

_Ask me about where I keep my spare key to my desk drawers._

 

_\--_

_16 Guardian, 9:35_

_RE: Password Hint_

 

_Favourite thing on the Rose’s menu._

 

_\--_

_16 Guardian, 9:35_

_RE: Password Hint_

 

_Ask me what I plan to do for my dog’s birthday this year._

 

\--

_16 Guardian, 9:35_

_RE: Password Hint_

 

_Ask me about the importance of logging out of my computer._

 

_\--_

“I wasn’t even here that day,” he mutters, flipping the page over to find it blank. “Wait, where does it even say to ask about romantic…” he trails off, eyes widening. His heart speeds up as he leaps out of his chair. “Sweet Maker! I…wait, what if I’m wrong though?”

Anders looks over, arching a brow. “What’s happening now? Did I miss something in the last twenty seconds since we last spoke?”

“No, it’s nothing. Possibly something. I don’t know, we’ll find out soon enough. I need to go get my password reset. Be right back,” he says, running off.

On the way, he runs into Varric. The bags under his eyes are darker than usual, but his mood seems significantly less grouchy and hateful than Hawke’s when sleep deprived. “Whoa, Hawke, where are you off to in such a hurry?” he asks, walking beside him. “And with so much _purpose_. You look like you’re ready to kick down walls.”

“I’m getting my password reset,” he replies.

Varric arches a brow. “Doesn’t Broody normally do delivery for that?”

“Yes, but my account doesn’t normally get hacked by indecisive people while I’m away on sick leave,” Hawke fires back easily.

Making a surprised noise, Varric huffs, “Well, shit, I guess Aveline wins that one. Unless you had help?”

He nods and admits, “I did. I assume that renders your bet void?”

“That, it does, my friend. You just saved me 40 silvers,” Varric says with a clap on the back. “I spent most of yesterday looking for a publisher for my book. It’s a crime mystery novel; I’ll email you a copy later. Just need to come up with a proper title for it, then I think I might try my hand at some steamy romance next. What do you think I should go with? _Swords and Shields_ or _Hard in Hightown_?”

“Hard in Hightown, definitely,” Hawke immediately says, his voice joined by Isabela’s as they reached HR. He pauses and blinks. “Wait, was that for the steamy romance or the crime mystery?”

“ _Hard in Hightown_ it is then!” Varric declares. “Thanks, guys.”

Isabela gives him a kiss on the cheek as Aveline says, “Hello, I see you’re feeling better, Hawke. What’s this? Coming empty handed?”

He looks down and shrugs. “I was in a hurry.”

That’s all it takes for everything to click in Aveline’s head. Sleep deprived or not, she still has no trouble understanding the horrible mess that is his life. “Right. If you’re looking for Fenris, he went running into the IT room a little while ago.”

“We were just discussing what you could’ve done to cause such a commotion,” Isabela adds. “And also comparing our productivity levels these last few days. I’m learning a lot about Guardsman Donnic’s stamina.”

Rolling her eyes and crossing her arms, Aveline scowls even as a flush of pink colours her cheeks. “Oh, shut up, whore.”

“So are you gonna tell us what’s going on, Hawke?” Varric asks.

Hawke shakes his head and marches over to the IT room, followed by the three. “Nope, not telling. Seeing as your original bet’s been annulled, I’ll leave you guys to your speculations. Stand guard and don’t let anyone into the room.”

Isabela and Varric immediately take up post on either side of the door and salute him. “Do you want us to wait until you come back out or what?”

“Just wait for like, two minutes,” he answers. “If things go my way and I’m not out by then, then you may have to find me during my break to calm me down as I will be overcome with joy. And if things don’t work out and I’m out within two minutes, then you may have to immediately calm me down as I will be overcome with sadness.”

“You go get him, sweetness,” Isabela says encouragingly. “We’ll be out here making bets.”

Hawke raps on the door and waits for a moment before adding, “This is all assuming I get let into the room at all, of course.”

There’s a soft click from the door.

He takes a deep breath and steps inside, past the gust of cool air and turns around before the door closes behind him and says, “By the way, put me down for Aveline, Varric. And I’ll raise everyone 20 silvers.”

(Because if anyone’s capable of beating their sleep schedule back in order through sheer will and determination, it’s Aveline.)

Varric nods and waves. “You got it, buddy.”

The door closes with another click, leaving him alone in the IT room. In front of him, multiple monitors continue lighting up the back wall, each displaying a different section of the office. He sees Varric, Isabela, and Aveline still standing outside the room making wagers, and he sees Merrill buried in piles of paper and Anders angrily scrolling through pictures of cats on his screen through his sleeplessness.

And he sees his desk.

Where all the cameras in Marketing used to cut off right before his desk, one has shifted and become solely focused on him. That can’t be a bad sign, right? Well, it could, but he resolutely stops himself from entertaining the idea.

Mustering all his courage, he walks over to Fenris’ desk where the other’s back is still turned to him; nothing but shocking white hair visible in contrast to the dim room. “Fenris…” he calls out softly.

“Hawke.” The chair slowly turns, revealing the tattoos and dark skin and beautiful green eyes. “I have been thinking of you. In fact, I have been able to think of little else.”

His heart races even as he tries to lighten the mood. “I imagine four sleepless nights and me on the mind would be enough to drive most people mad.”

“It’s been far more than four sleepless nights,” Fenris admits, standing up, leaving their faces mere inches apart. “Perhaps I _am_ mad for getting my hopes up. Tell me it was just a joke, Hawke, and I’ll think nothing more of it.”

“I’d sooner go mute,” he insists, looking the other in the eyes, “so by all means, think more of it. And I hope you won’t mind if I act on it—”

Before he can finish, Fenris surges forward and kisses him and growls, “Nook. Now.”

“Yes, ser,” Hawke murmurs back, more than happy to comply.

\--

“They can’t possibly already know everything,” Fenris argues as they approach the common room for their break. “It all happened barely an hour ago.”

Hawke crosses his arms and grins. “I bet you a date that they know everything and probably knew it the moment it happened. I already know I’m going to win, so how about I pick you up after work?”

Letting out an amused huff, Fenris replies, “We work at the same place, Hawke. Besides, I got in earlier than you today.”

“Oh, good, then you can come by and pick _me_ up.”

When they enter the room, their friends shoot them both knowing looks, and Hawke turns to Fenris, waggling his eyebrows as though to say “ _See?_ ” The only thing that catches him off guard is when Merrill says excitedly, “Oh! Under a year! I knew it! Does this mean I win the bet?”

“You sure did, Kitten. Let’s see what we owe you.” Isabela chuckles and pulls out a small notebook and pen from her bra. She flips to a page titled ‘Hawke and Fenris getting together’ and dated back many months ago. It’s not the bet that surprises him (he did make two sovereigns from the Aveline-Donnic incident after all) but _under a year?_

Fenris arches a brow, evidently thinking along the same lines as him when he asks, “What were the other guesses?”

“I had you two down for three years,” Isabela tells him.

“And I had you down for a confession at three but official at six,” Varric admits.

“I guessed over a year but under two,” Aveline says.

“I had you down for never,” Anders says with a shrug. “ _Someone_ had to.”

Hawke huffs and crosses his arms. “Really? _Six years_ , Varric?”

Varric holds his hands up in defense. “What? I had a pretty good plot laid out with drama and romance and betrayals and everything. Maybe I’ll include it in my next book instead. I think I’ll call it _Tale of the Champion_.”

“Will there be dragons in it?” he asks, distracted from his original complaint.

“I’ll throw in two just for you, Hawke,” Varric offers.

Reaching out, they shake on it. “Deal. I look forward to reading it.”

Meanwhile, Isabela sidles up close and smirks. “So, Fenris, you two have joined the IT Nook Club, hmm?”

Chest puffed out in triumph, Hawke turns to gloat, “What did I say? Everything the second it happened! Looks like I win our little bet.”

Fenris rolls his eyes and deadpans, “Oh no, I guess this means I _have_ to go on a date with you. What a terrible ordeal.”

He grins. “I get off at five today.”

Biting back a smile, Fenris nods. “I’ll try not to be late.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist the ME bit because I've spent the last month at least playing and replaying those games. Thanks again for reading! Here, have some extra epilogue-y bits!
> 
> Extra Epilogue-y bits:
> 
> Two years later, Kirkwall nearly goes down under and most of the staff are let go, including upper management. But not Aveline. Because Aveline’s the skeletal structure of Kirkwall and the only thing keeping it from crumbling to the ground completely. All the marketers become freelancers, looking for work wherever they can. It’s not easy but everyone manages to get by.
> 
> Three years later, a new company specializing in real world problems called ‘The Inquisition’ opens up, recruiting from various places and all walks of life. From Kirkwall, they manage to recruit Varric and Cullen (who does suddenly become quite the ‘magnificent stallion’ as Isabela predicted). And it’s around that time that Hawke gets a letter from Varric saying: 
> 
> _‘Hawke,_
> 
> _I’ve got some work for you at the Skyhold branch. Remember that crazy old Tevinter marketer? Corypheus? Well, he’s back. And still crazy. So come on by and it’ll be just like the good old times!_
> 
> _By the way, the Inquisitor’s a little shit so I think the two of you will get along like a house on fire._
> 
> _-V’_


End file.
